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THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


As  Illustrated  by  the 


AFRICAN  BANTU 


THE  WORLD’S  LIVING  RELIGIONS 


EDITED  BY 

FRANK  KNIGHT  SANDERS 

AND 

HARLAN  PAGE  BEACH 


A  series  of  concise  yet  reliable  presentations  of  the 
actual  religious  life  of  the  non-Christian  peoples  of 
today  and  of  Christianity’s  approach  to  them 


VOLUMES 

The  Religion  op  Lower  Races  as  Illustrated  by  the  African 
Bantu  ( now  ready) 

Primitive  Religion  in  Southeastern  Asia 
Hinduism  in  the  Life  of  India 

Buddhism  and  Buddhists  in  Southern  Asia  (now  ready) 

Foism  and  the  Buddhists  of  China  ( in  preparation) 

Present  Day  Buddhism  in  Japan 
Present  Day  Confucianism 
Islam  and  Its  Followers 

Roman  Christianity  in  Latin  America  (in  preparation) 
Christianity  and  the  World  Religions 


THE  RELIGIO 
LOWER  RAC 


As  Illustrated  by  the 


AFRICAN  BANTU 


BY 

EDWIN  W.  SMITH 

Sometime  missionary  in  Northern  Rhodesia;  cmthor  of  “A  Hand¬ 
book  of  the  Ila  Language,”  etc.;  chief -translator  of  the 
Ila  New  Testament;  co-author  of  “ The  Ila-speaking 
Peoples  of  Northern  Rhodesia” ;  Fellow  of 
the  Royal  Anthropological  Insti¬ 
tute  of  Great  Britain . 


/|5rto  Sort 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1923 


All  rights  reserved 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


Copyright,  1923, 

By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  printed.  Published  May,  1923. 


Press  of 

J.  J.  Little  &  Ives  Company 
New  York,  U.  S.  A. 


The  Committee  of  Reference  and  Counsel  of  the  Foreign 
Missions  Conference  of  North  America  has  authorized  the 
publication  of  this  series  with  the  usual  understanding 
that  the  author  of  each  volume  is  responsible  for  the 
opinions  expressed,  unless  otherwise  stated. 


i 


PREFACE 

This  little  volume  is  one  of  a  series  on  “The  World’s 
Living  Religions,”  projected  in  1920  by  a  committee  of 
the  Board  of  Missionary  Preparation  of  North  America, 
and  intended  to  furnish  accurate  and  trustworthy,  though 
brief  and  popular  presentations  of  the  actual  religious  life 
of  each  great  region  of  the  non-Christian  world.  Its 
purpose  is  to  give  to  students  of  religion  in  the  West  and 
particularly  to  missionary  candidates  who  are  planning 
to  go  to  Africa,  or  to  other  portions  of  the  world  where 
primitive  peoples  are  living,  and  to  all  who  are  interested 
to  know  such  peoples  more  intimately,  a  vivid  conception 
of  the  religious  conditions  which  exist  in  such  an  area  and 
some  understanding  of  the  hold  of  the  prevailing  religion 
upon  those  who  follow  it. 

In  a  true  sense  these  hooks  seek  to  enable  a  reader  to 
think  in  terms  of  a  devotee  of  a  strange  religion,  to  ap¬ 
preciate  his  point  of  view  with  some  sympathy,  and  thus 
become  able  to  consider  his  religious  problems  helpfully. 
The  series  aims  to  be  impressionistic  rather  than  educa¬ 
tional,  and  to  alford  a  clear  picture  of  the  religion  in 
question  as  it  works  out  in  its  normal  social  setting.  The 
editors  have  not  sought  to  provide  a  thoroughly  scientific 
discussion  of  each  religion.  For  such  an  approach  the 
literature  referred  to  in  the  Appendix  makes  ample 
provision. 

The  writer  of  this  volume  was  for  seventeen  years  a 

missionary  of  the  Primitive  Methodist  Church  in  Africa 

•  • 
vn 


Vlll 


PREFACE 


and  spent  most  of  that  time  as  a  pioneer  in  Northern  Rho¬ 
desia.  He  reduced  the  Ila  language  to  writing,  prepared 
its  grammar  and  dictionary,  translated  most  of  the  New 
Testament  into  a  popular  version  and  wrote  books  for 
Ila  use  in  the  schools.  With  a  colleague,  A.  M.  Dale,  he 
has  published  an  exhaustive  study  of  the  Ila-speaking 
Bantu  peoples,  already  recognized  as  a  contribution  of 
great  value.  Born  in  South  Africa,  the  son  of  a  mis¬ 
sionary,  his  life-long  study  of  the  Bantu  peoples  has 
amply  qualified  him  by  a  rich  experience  to  interpret  their 
social  and  religious  life.  In  his  judgment  the  readers  of 
this  series  will  best  be  served  by  a  clear  and  adequate  ex¬ 
hibit  of  the  religious  life  of  one  group  of  peoples  of  lower 
religious  culture  in  preference  to  a  general  study  of  folk 
religion.  With  this  judgment  the  editors  are  in  full 
sympathy. 

There  are  good  reasons  for  choosing  the  African  Bantu 
to  represent  the  other  peoples  of  a  similar  grade  of  cul¬ 
ture.  Among  these  reasons  is  the  importance  of  Africa  as 
a  mission  field.  European  politicians  have  long  recog¬ 
nized  the  strategic  character  of  that  continent  from  their 
point  of  view.  The  economic  value  of  the  land  that  was 
once  regarded  as  chiefly  desert  is  more  and  more  realized 
today.  Nor  in  the  politics  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  is 
Africa  of  any  less  importance.  It  may  be  that  the  final 
conflict  between  the  Cross  and  the  Crescent  will  be  deter¬ 
mined  there.  Certainly  the  struggle  will  be  a  hard  one. 
From  every  point  of  view  it  is  of  the  highest  import  that 
the  pagan  Bantu  of  Central  and  Southern  Africa  should 
be  Christianized  before  Mohammedan  propaganda  spreads 
further.  Hence  the  importance  of  thoroughly  knowing 
the  religious  ideas  of  these  peoples  and  of  being  able  to 
approach  them  on  the  right  lines.  Moslem  missionaries 
have  a  great  advantage  over  Christian  missionaries  in  be- 


PREFACE 


IX 


ing  culturally  nearer  the  people  whom  they  seek  to  con¬ 
vert.  To  bridge  the  gulf  between  the  graduate  of  a  West¬ 
ern  university  and  the  pagan  African  is  no  easy  matter; 
it  cannot  be  bridged  at  all  unless  those  who  are  trained 
amidst  Christian  surroundings  make  a  strong  and  sympa¬ 
thetic  effort  to  understand  the  African  point  of  view  in 
the  matters  that  most  concern  them  and  him.  Hence  the 
emphasis  which  we  would  put  upon  the  necessity  of  an 
introduction  of  this  sort  to  Bantu  religious  ideas. 

It  is  true  beyond  cavil  that  the  area  covered  by  the 
Bantu-speaking  peoples  presents  a  wide  variation  in  cul¬ 
tural  features, — customs,  habits,  manufactures  and  be¬ 
liefs, — yet  there  is,  nevertheless,  a  fair  basis  for  an  inter¬ 
pretation  (such  as  this  volume  offers)  which  aims  to  state 
what  is  generally  true.  The  Bantu  peoples  do  form  a 
reasonably  distinctive  group,  yet  they  also  represent  the 
average  negro  type.  As  they  live,  act,  think  and  wor¬ 
ship,  so  in  the  main  do  other  primitive  peoples  in  Africa. 

The  round  of  religious  ideas  and  practices  which  the 
Bantu  exhibit  finds  many  parallels  among  primitive  peo¬ 
ples  everywhere.  Another  volume  of  the  series  will  treat 
specifically  the  religious  ideas  of  such  peoples  in  South¬ 
eastern  Asia,  yet  one  who  is  going  among  primitive  peo¬ 
ple  anywhere  will  find  this  volume  of  great  assistance  in 
the  task  of  understanding  them. 

It  is  our  hope  that  this  uniquely  fresh  contribution  to 
the  understanding  of  the  present  day  religion  of  primitive 
people  in  Africa  may  be  found  helpful  to  a  large  circle  of 
readers. 

The  Editors. 

New  York  City 

March >  1923 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Introduction . 1-4 

1.  The  Wide  Distribution  of  Elementary  Reli¬ 

gion  . . 2,  3 

2.  The  Bantu  Religion  an  Adequate  Exhibit  .  3,  4 

II.  The  Bantu  Peoples  of  Africa . 5-8 

1.  The  Origin  of  the  Bantu . 5,  6 

2.  Their  Social  Organization  and  Culture  .  .  6, 7  ‘~- 

3.  The  Spirit  in  Which  the  Race  Should  Be 

Studied . 7, 8 

III.  The  Basis  of  Faith  in  Bantu  Religion  .  .  .  9-21 

1.  They  Believe  in  a  Universal  Energy  .  .  .  9, 10 

2.  The  Secret  of  Its  Manipulation  .  .  .  .  10, 11 

3.  Its  Application  to  Actual  Life . 11-21 

(a)  In  medicinal  remedies . 11 

(b)  In  charms  which  give  luck  ....  11 

(c)  In  fetishes  with  their  reputed  spiritual 

power . 12 

( d )  In  the  practice  of  witchcraft  ...  14 

(e)  In  the  tabu  which  forbids  ....  17 

(/)  These  practices  do  not  lack  moral  value  19 

IY.  The  Complex  Conception  of  Personality  .  .22-27 

1.  The  Vital  Principle  Exists  Apart  from  the 

Body . 22-24 

(a)  It  is  transmissible . 22 

(b)  It  is  focussed  in  various  organs  .  .  23 

( c )  It  is  separable . 23 

2.  A  Murdered  Man  and  Certain  Slain  Animals 

Have  an  Aura  or  “Nuru” . 24 

3.  One’s  Name  is  a  Part  of  His  Being  ...  24 

xi 


Xll 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

4.  The  Dead  Often  Return  to  be  Reborn  .  26 

5.  Even  One’s  Shadow  Belongs  to  His  Person¬ 

ality  . 26,  27 

Y.  The  Survival  of  the  Personality . 28-32 

1.  A  Funeral  in  Pagan  Africa . 28,29 


2.  The  Killing  of  Cattle  and  Slaves  at  Funerals 30,  31 

3.  The  Destination  of  the  Departed  ....  33 

VI.  The  Cult  of  the  Dead . 33-48 

1.  The  Relation  of  the  Living  to  the  Dead  .  33-35 

2.  The  Four  Grades  of  Ancestral  Spirits  .  .35-38 

(a)  The  tutelary  genius . 36 

(/;)  The  family  divinities . 37 

(c)  The  communal  and  tribal  divinities  .  38 

3.  Communion  with  the  Divinities  ....  38-43 

(a)  They  often  come  in  dreams  .  .  .  .  39 

(b)  They  appear  in  the  forms  of  animals  .  39 

(c)  They  cause  sickness . 40 

( d )  They  speak  through  mediums  and 

prophets . 40 

(e)  They  take  up  their  abode  in  certain 

objects . 42 

4.  Sacred  Localities  Associated  with  the  Divini¬ 

ties  . 43 

5.  Prayers  and  Offerings  to  the  Divinities  .  .  44-48 

VII.  Nature  Spirits . 49-51 

VIII.  Tribal  Divinities  Passing  over  into  Gods  .  .  .  52-53 

IX.  The  Bantu  Conception  of  the  Supreme  Being  .  54-64 

1.  It  Plays  an  Unproductive  Part  in  Bantu  Life  54-56 

2.  The  Three  Most  Common  Names  for  God  and 

Their  Meanings . 56-61 

(a)  God  is  intimately  associated  with  the 

sky  and  what  comes  from  it  .  58 

( b )  God  is  the  creator . 59 

(c)  God  is  the  determiner  of  destiny  .  .  59 


CONTENTS  xiii 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

(d)  Yet  there  is  some  idea  of  God  as  be¬ 

nevolent  . 59 

(e)  Morality  is  ascribed  to  God  ...  60 

(/)  God  is  a  person . 60 

3.  Their  Groping  after  God . 61,  62 

4.  Origin  and  Value  of  the  Idea . 62-64 

X.  The  Christian  Approach  to  the  Bantu  .  .  .  65-75 

1.  Aspects  of  Bantu  Religious  Life  ....  65-68 

(a)  It  is  real . 65 

(b)  Yet  it  is  a  religion  of  fear  ....  66 

(c)  It  is  doomed  to  pass  away  ....  66  ^ 

2.  The  Future  of  the  Bantu  Race  ....  69 

3.  What  Christianity  will  do  for  the  Bantu  .  69-71 

(a)  It  will  make  them  sure  of  God  ...  69 

( b )  It  will  moralize  their  whole  life  .  .  69 

(c)  It  will  liberate  them  from  their  fears  .  70 


( d )  It  will  make  for  a  healthy  and  pro¬ 
gressive  individuality . 70 

4.  The  Acquisition  of  Experience  by  the 

Friendly  Student  of  the  Bantu  .  .  .  72-75 

(a)  Take  pains  to  understand  the  view¬ 

point  of  the  people . 72 

( b )  Cultivate  friendly  relations  with  them  72 

(c)  Master  the  language  of  the  people  .  72 

(d)  Cultivate  tact  and  patience  ...  73 

( e )  Make  accurate  and  full  records  .  .  73 

(/)  Treat  local  customs  and  ideas  with  re¬ 
spect  . 74 

( g )  Seek  for  points  of  contact  ....  74  7 

( h )  In  conclusion . 75 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


/ 


t 


) 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER 

RACES 


As  Illustrated  by  the 

AFRICAN  BANTU 
I 

INTRODUCTORY 

The  writer  was  once  on  a  visit  to  a  Bantu  chief  in 
Africa  who  long  had  been  unfriendly  to  the  Mission, 
but  who  that  day  showed  unmistakable  signs  of  a  chang¬ 
ing  attitude.  When  he  arose  to  leave,  the  chief  insisted 
upon  accompanying  him  a  part  of  the  way.  As  they 
walked  along  side  by  side,  he  felt  the  chief  insinuating 
something  into  his  hand.  Glancing  around  to  see  that 
they  were  not  observed  the  chief  said :  “Do  not  look  at  this 
now,  but  wear  it  always.”  “What  is  it?”  the  missionary 
asked.  “It  is  a  very  powerful  and  very  precious  talis¬ 
man,  the  secret  of  which  cost  me  ten  cows,”  the  chief 
replied.  “It  will  ensure  that  everybody  with  whom  you 
come  into  contact  will  love  you !”  The  gift  was  accepted 
in  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  offered  and  with  warm 
thanks.  On  later  examination  the  talisman  was  found  to 
be  a  bracelet  composed  of  a  roll  of  snakeskin  enclosing 
varied  drugs. 

Now  one  may  ask :  What  has  this  to  do  with  religion  ? 
There  are  plenty  of  people  in  America  and  Europe,  good 
Christians,  too,  who  will  wear  a  lucky-token  on  their 

1 


2 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


watch  chain,  or  avoid  the  number  thirteen,  or  knock  on 
wood,  but  we  do  not  call  these  acts  of  religion.  Were  an 
African  to  write  of  our  religion  and  devote  one  chapter 
to  “The  God  Luck,”  we  should  be  offended.  These  things 
belong  to  the  same  cycle  of  ideas  as  the  charms  of  the  sav¬ 
age;  with  us,  however,  they  are  a  mere  relic  of  a  former 
system  of  belief,  a  “survival,”  a  superstition.  In  Africa 
today  they  do  not  represent  mere  superstition;  they  are 
part  and  parcel  of  the  faith  by  which  people  live  and  by 
which  they  act. 

Religion,  in  its  lowest  as  in  its  highest  forms,  begins 
in  an  act  of  trust.  Faith  is  essential  to  it,  faith  in  the  ex¬ 
istence  and  working  of  supersensible  power,  faith  which 
springs  from  the  pressure  of  human  needs,  faith  which 
moulds  and  shapes  as  well  the  life  of  the  individual  as  that 
of  the  social  organism.  The  African  has  a  more  complete 
trust  in  what  lies  behind  his  charms  than  many  of  us 
have  in  the  providence  of  God.  Faith  in  that  power  which 
works  in  and  through  an  amulet  or  a  talisman  may  be  a 
low  form  of  faith,  but  it  is  faith.  The  one  who  seeks  to 
come  into  helpful  religious  relationship  or  even  contact 
with  people  must  not  treat  this  trust  as  a  superstition  to 
be  ignored  or  condemned.  It  is  rather  a  pathway  along 
which  may  come  the  realization  of  a  higher  form  of  faith. 

The  Bantu  of  Africa  are  a  human  unit  in  this  ele¬ 
mentary  stage  of  religious  development.  A  study  of  their 
religious  ideas  will  not  only  serve  to  exhibit  the  religious 
experience  of  the  negro,  but  will  also  illustrate  the  gen¬ 
eral  characteristics  of  the  religious  life  of  all  peoples  of 
the  lower  culture. 

1.  The  Wide  Distribution  of  Elementary  Religion 

A  large  section  of  the  human  race  is  still  in  an  ele¬ 
mentary  stage  of  development  religiously  or  else  it  re- 


INTRODUCTORY 


3 


tains  elements  of  an  earlier  cult  in  connection  with  its 
own  present  more  stately  worship.  The  native  peoples  of 
Africa,  of  the  island  world,  of  Northern  Asia,  of  secluded 
portions  of  India  and  of  the  aboriginal  American  conti¬ 
nent  still  retain  the  religious  impress  of  primitive  areas. 
Millions  of  the  followers  of  Buddha,  of  Mohammed,  of 
Confucius  and  of  the  officially  recognized  gods  of  India 
cherish  practices  which  are  but  survivals  of  those  of  an 
earlier  time,  before  their  ancestors  adopted  these  more 
highly  organized  religious  cults.  Even  Christianity,  as 
we  know  it,  reveals  traces  of  such  survivals. 

2.  The  Bantu  Religion  an  Adequate  Exhibit 

In  the  great  historical  and  flourishing  religions  of  to¬ 
day  these  survivals  are  ignored  as  matters  of  purely 
private  interest  or  concern,  or  else  are  regarded  as  super¬ 
stitions  unworthy  of  attention.  To  gain  a  clear  sight  of 
elementary  religious  ideas  in  full  control  of  life  one  must 
turn  to  undeveloped  peoples  like  the  negroes  of  Africa. 
Of  these  the  Bantu  afford  a  typical  religious  exhibit,  since 
they  represent  the  African  at  his  best. 

It  is  no  easy  task  to  produce  a  satisfying  survey  of 
Bantu  religion.  Of  very  few  tribes  is  there  available  any 
adequate  first-hand  description;  of  most  of  them  scarcely 
anything  is  really  known.  The  information  available  is 
scattered  through  many  books  and  articles  written  by  mis¬ 
sionaries,  government  officials  and  travelers.  The  account 
of  the  salient  features  of  Bantu  religion  that  follows  will 
serve  as  a  starting  point  for  further  study.  It  is  quite 
possible  that  the  writer’s  long  experience  with  a  few  par¬ 
ticular  tribes  has,  in  some  points,  led  him  astray  in  at¬ 
tempting  a  composite  picture.  It  need  only  be  said  that 
he  has  been  aware  of  the  possibility  and  has  tried  to 
avoid  it,  giving  to  the  best  of  his  knowledge  and  belief  a 


4 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


true  account  of  the  religion  as  a  whole.  In  order  to  give 
a  proper  setting  to  this  picture  it  will  be  necessary  first  to 
note  a  few  facts  regarding  the  Bantu  peoples  and  their 
history. 


II 


THE  BANTU  PEOPLES  OF  AFRICA 

The  word  “Bantu”  simply  means  “people”  or  “the 
people.”  It  applies  to  a  negroid  people  divided  into 
many  groups,  numbering  about  fifty  millions.  If  one 
should  draw  a  line  diagonally  across  the  map  of  Africa 
from  the  mouth  of  the  Rio-del-Rey  in  the  Gulf  of  Guinea 
to  the  mouth  of  the  Tana  River  on  the  east  coast,  slightly 
below  the  equator,  the  territory  of  the  Bantu  would  be 
south  of  the  line.  The  Bantu  differ  from  the  true  negroes 
found  north  of  this  line,  in  that  they  have  a  strain 
of  Hamitic  (and  probably  of  Elamitic)  blood  in  their 
veins. 

1.  The  Origin  of  the  Bantu 

In  ancient  times  Bantu  Africa  was  in  all  probability 
inhabited  by  black  peoples  of  a  lower  type ;  in  the  distant 
south,  beyond  the  Zambesi  River,  lived  nomadic  Bush¬ 
men.  Not  far  from  the  third  or  fourth  century  B.  C.,  let 
us  say  about  the  time  of  Camillus,  the  founder  of  historic 
Rome,  of  Demosthenes,  of  Cyrus  and  of  Nehemiah,  the 
ancestors  of  the  Bantu  swept  south  from  their  original 
home,  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  great  equa¬ 
torial  lakes,1  overrunning  in  the  course  of  centuries  the 

1  Johnston  now  holds  that  these  lakes  (or  the  Bahr-al-Ghazal) 
were  a  secondary  focus  of  distribution  for  the  Bantu,  its  earliest 
area  of  development  being  in  Eastern  Nigeria.  Comparative  Study 
of  the  Bantu  and  Semi-Bantu  Languages,  Vol.  II,  pp.  xii,  14. 

5 


6 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


southern  part  of  the  continent,  except  the  southwest  corner, 
where  the  Hottentots  and  Bushmen  continued  to  live. 
They  took  with  them  cattle,  domestic  fowls  and  imple¬ 
ments  of  iron,  and  either  exterminated,  or  more  generally 
absorbed,  the  previous  inhabitants.  While  the  modern 
Bantu  have  much  in  common,  they  are  not  homogeneous 
either  in  culture  or  in  physical  appearance.  This  fact 
must  be  accounted  for  by  the  varying  degrees  of  their 
mixture  with  the  aboriginals  and  by  the  influence  of  di¬ 
verse  climatic  conditions.  Their  languages,  however,  over 
three  hundred  of  which  are  known,  constitute  a  clearly 
marked  family  of  speech,  while  there  is  a  sufficient  like¬ 
ness  of  religious  ideas  to  make  possible  and  to  justify 
such  a  sketch  as  the  following. 

2.  Their  Social  Organization  and  Culture 

In  order  to  show  the  quality  of  the  Bantu  peoples,  it 
will  be  well  to  give  a  brief  account  of  their  industrial  and 
social  life.1  The  Bantu  are  not  savages.  Wherever  the 
country  is  adapted  to  the  purpose,  they  possess  great  herds 
of  cattle  and  are  agriculturists.  Their  staple  foods  in  the 
east  country  are  milk  and  millet  and  maize ;  and,  in  the 
west,  yams,  plantains  and  manioc  (cassava).  Their  gen¬ 
eral  type  of  dwelling  is  the  cylindrical  hut  with  a  conical 
roof  of  grass;  in  the  southeast  one  finds  bee-hive  huts 
and  in  the  west  rectangular  buildings  with  ridged  roofs. 
Iron  is  worked  almost  universally  by  them,  and  copper 
too,  where  it  exists.  The  art  of  preparing  bark-fibre 
cloth  is  practiced  by  many  tribes,  while  wood-carving  and 
basketry  are  very  general.  They  have  no  interest  or  skill 
in  working  with  stone.  They  represent  a  fine  average 
negro  type. 

1  For  a  very  complete  and  fascinating  study  of  a  Bantu  group, 
the  Ba-ila  of  Northern  Rhodesia,  see  Smith  and  Dale’s  The  Ila- 
Speaking  Peoples,  etc.  (Bibliography  No.  20). 


BANTU  PEOPLES  OF  AFRICA 


7 


The  social  organization  varies  to  some  extent  with  the 
climatic  conditions.  Almost  everywhere  the  social  unit 
is  the  village,  made  up  of  families  and  ruled  by  a  head¬ 
man,  a  number  of  villages  forming  a  group  ruled  by  a 
chief.  In  the  open  country  where  communication  is  easy, 
nations  have  sprung  into  existence  under  kings.  In  the 
historic  past  extensive,  even  if  ephemeral,  “empires”  have 
been  formed  by  such  conquering  chiefs  as  Msidi,  Chaka 
and  Sebitwane.  Most  of  the  Bantu  tribes  show  some 
trace  of  totemism ;  that  is  to  say,  they  are  or  were  at  one 
time  divided  into  clans,  each  bearing  the  name  of  some 
animal,  plant  or  object,  such  as  the  “Elephants,”  the 
“Grasshoppers”  or  the  “Baobabs.”  The  Prime  Minister 
of  Uganda,  we  are  told,  is  a  “Grasshopper”  and  uses  a 
seal  with  the  legend  “Always  forward.”  The  members 
of  a  clan  are  united  by  close  ties  of  comradeship.  Mar¬ 
riage  within  the  clan  is  not  allowed,  i.e.,  an  Elephant 
must  not  marry  an  Elephant.  The  clan  name  descends 
in  general  through  the  mother,  not  the  father.1  These  are 
original  features  of  totemism,  which,  however,  are  now 
rarely  found  in  their  purity.  But  generally  throughout 
Africa  the  clan  pays  great  respect  to  its  totem,  i.e.,  the 
animal  or  other  object  from  which  it  takes  its  name. 
Totemism  is  often  treated  as  a  religion,  sometimes  as  if 
it  were  the  most  primitive  form  of  religion,  but  in  Africa 
today  it  has  hardly  any,  if  any,  religious  significance ;  its 
importance  is  wholly  social. 

3.  The  Spirit  in  Which  the  Race  Should  Be  Studied 

Before  proceeding  further,  let  us  stop  a  moment  and 
try  to  bring  these  peoples  before  our  mental  vision.  Travel 

1  All  clans  were  matrilineal  originally.  There  are  some,  however, 
which  have  become  patrilineal.  In  these  marriage  within  the  clan 
is  regarded  as  desirable,  only  surpassed  by  marriage  into  the 
mother’s  clan. 


8 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


in  imagination  up  the  great  rivers,  through  the  dense 
forests,  over  the  wide  undulating  savannahs.  Try  to 
catch  some  of  the  notes  of  the  still  sad  music  of  Africa’s 
humanity.  Fifty  millions  of  people,  living  and  dying! 
They  have  black  or  chocolate  skins ;  in  many  respects  they 
are  separated  from  ourselves  by  vast  chasms;  but  they 
are  human,  composed  of  flesh  and  blood  and  soul  as  we 
are.  If  you  prick  them  they  bleed ;  if  you  tickle  them 
they  laugh,  as  we  do.  Grief  and  joy  touch  the  same 
chords  of  their  hearts  as  of  our  own.  In  their  veins  surge 
our  own  pitiful  passions.  They,  with  us,  have  pondered 
'  the  dark  enigmas  of  human  life,  the  mystery  of  the  great 
universe  around,  and  they,  too,  have  been  disturbed  by  a 
sense  of  something  interfused, 

.  il  Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air. 99 

In  the  course  of  this  study  we  shall  meet  with  much 
that  may  seem  revolting  because  of  its  foolishness,  cruelty 
and  degradation,  but  let  us  go  on  in  the  spirit  of  sym¬ 
pathy,  remembering  that  we  are  all  pupils  in  God’s  great 
school  and  that  if,  by  His  grace,  we  are  in  the  higher 
class,  it  is  not  for  us  to  despise  those  who  are  in  the 
kindergarten. 


Ill 


THE  BASIS  OF  FAITH  IN  BANTU  RELIGION 

1.  They  Believe  in  a  Universal  Energy 

The  anecdote  related  in  the  opening  paragraph  shows 
clearly  one  type  of  faith  which  the  Bantu  possess.  When, 
we  think  ourselves  back  into  their  minds  we  realize  that, 
while  they  recognize  a  more  or  less  personal  Supreme  Be¬ 
ing  and  recognize,  too,  personal  spiritual  beings  of  a 
lower  grade,  they  expend  a  very  large  proportion  of  their 
religious  feeling  on  a  power  that  is  impersonal.  Ona  of 
the  technical  names  given  to  their  belief  is  dynamism,  the 
belief  in  an  Energy  or  Potence  which  is  immanent  in  all 
things,  something  as  intangible  and  all-pervasive  as  the 
ether.  It  is  everywhere,  it  flows  through  all  things,  but 
it  draws  itself  to  a  node  or  focus  in  certain  conspicuous 
objects.  In  itself  it  has  no  moral  quality,  but  it  can  be 
tapped  and  turned  to  good  use  or  bad  according  to  the 
intention  of  the  user.  Not  everybody,  however,  can 
manipulate  it;  its  use  must  be  fenced  in  by  many  pre¬ 
cautions,  for  it  is  dangerous,  just  as  electricity  may  be 
dangerous  to  those  who  do  not  understand  how  to  use  it. 
It  is  akin  to  the  Mana  of  the  Melanesians  and  other  Pacific 
islanders,  the  Orenda  and  Watan  of  the  red  Indians. 

In  trying  to  understand  this  conception  which  seems  to 
underlie  all  Bantu  belief  and  practice,  it  is  helpful  to  re¬ 
call  the  modem  doctrine  of  energy  as  one  of  the  funda¬ 
mental  physical  existences.  In  one  of  its  potential  forms 

9 


10 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


energy  lies  dormant  in  all  matter,  associated  with  its  ulti¬ 
mate  atoms,  and  giving  no  indication  of  its  presence.  Not 
only  is  it,  as  everybody  knows,  in  coal  and  guncotton,  it 
lies  hidden  also  in  the  very  paving  stones  of  our  streets. 
It  is  boundless  and  inexhaustible,  if  only  we  knew  how 
to  harness  it  to  our  needs, — knew  how,  that  is  to  say,  to 
transform  potential  into  kinetic  energy,  the  energy  of 
burning  coal, ,  or  of  the  electric  charge,  or  of  moving 
electrons. 

Thoughtful  Bantu  would  echo  Carlyle, — wTho  when  he 
said  “force”  meant  “energy”:  “Force,  Force,  everywhere 
Force !  We  ourselves  a  mysterious  Force.  ...”  They 
too  see  in  all  things  a  kind  of  potential  energy,  which  be¬ 
comes  kinetic  or  active  in  the  talismans  and  amulets  to 
which  they  commit  their  fate. 

It  would  not  do  to  say  that  any  African  to  whom  one 
talks  would  be  able  to  express  his  belief  in  such  words 
as  the  above.  The  African  feels  rather  than  formulates. 
He  has  not  expressed  his  belief  in  set  terms;  it  lies  im¬ 
plicit  in  all  his  doings,  yet  probably  he  could  not  give  a 
name  for  the  Potence.  He  does  not,  in  a  word,  make  a 
creed  of  his  belief  in  this  energy;  he  acts  upon  it.  His 
religion  consists  very  largely  in  getting  this  power  to  work 
for  his  benefit  and  in  avoiding  that  which  would  bring 
him  into  violent  and  harmful  contact  with  it. 

2.  The  Secret  of  Its  Manipulation 

The  most  important  individuals  in  the  Bantu  commu¬ 
nity  are  the  doctors  and  the  diviners  because  they  are  be¬ 
lieved  to  hold  the  secret  of  harnessing  this  mysterious 
energy.  They  have  to  pass  through  a  ritual  of  initiation 
before  they  can  practice,  a  training  which  is  often  long 
and  severe.  The  doctor  must  learn  the  secret  of  the  plants 
and  other  objects  in  which,  so  to  speak,  the  all-pervasive 


BASIS  OF  FAITH  IN  BANTU  RELIGION  11 


energy  has  come  to  a  head  for  the  curing  of  disease  or  for 
the  making  of  amulets  and  talismans.  He  learns  darker 
mysteries,  too, — the  drugs  in  which  the  power  is  present 
to  blight  and  to  destroy.  The  diviner  seeks  to  discover 
or  learn  how  the  secrets  of  nature  may  be  employed  for 
the  discovery  of  human  secrets,  in  order  that  he  may  de¬ 
tect  thieves,  warlocks,1  witches  and  other  criminals. 

3.  Its  Application  to  Actual  Life 

In  countless  ways  this  energy  is  applied  to  the  needs  of 
every-day  life. 

(a)  In  Medicinal  Remedies. — Undoubtedly  the  Bantu 
have  learned  many  secrets  of  nature.  The  doctors  know 
the  therapeutic  qualities  of  many  plants ;  they  know  emet¬ 
ics,  for  example,  and  they  know  poisons.  They  believe 
they  know  more  than  they  really  do  know.  They  have  dis¬ 
covered  the  power  that  lies  in  what  we  call  “suggestion.” 
You  would  laugh  at  many  of  their  supposed  remedies ; 
some  of  their  concoctions  are  as  repulsive  as  the  witches’ 
broth  of  which  we  read  in  “Macbeth.”  You  would  feel 
inclined  to  say  to  them:  It  is  ridiculous  to  think  that 
such  things  can  work  the  wondrous  effects  you  imagine! 
Their  reply  might  be:  Yes,  the  thing  itself  appears  ab¬ 
surd,  but  the  essence  of  it  is  a  particular  manifestation  of 
the  world-energy,  and  that  essence  performs  the  wonders. 

(b)  In  Charms  Which  Give  Luck. — What  has  just  been 
.said  applies  particularly  to  the  charms  which  the  doc¬ 
tor  makes  and  sells  to  his  patients.  They  are  of  two 
kinds:  talismans  which  bring  good  luck  and  transmit 
qualities;  and  amulets  which  ward  off  ills  of  various 
kinds.  They  are  all  treated  very  seriously.  The  faith 
reposed  in  them  is  absolute.  As  used  they  constitute  a 

1  An  archaic  word,  again  coming  into  use  to  designate  a  male 
sorcerer. 


12 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


system  of  insurance.  Instead  of  taking  out  an  insurance 
policy  against  the  risk  of  having  his  hut  destroyed  by 
lightning,  for  example,  a  man  will  buy  an  amulet  for 
this  purpose  from  the  doctor.  Charms  are  worn  upon  the 
person;  they  are  suspended  from  the  roof  in  the  house 
or  hung  up  outside;  they  are  attached  to  tools  and  instru¬ 
ments.  The  writer  has  been  asked  many  times  to  give 
_.men  a  charm  for  their  guns,  so  that  they  might  always 
shoot  straight;  others  have  begged  him  for  a  charm  for 
their  eyes  so  that  they  might  be  able  to  read  books,  for 
they  have  a  firm  conviction  that  skill  is  derived  from  tal¬ 
ismans.  When  they  put  iron  ore  into  their  smelting- 
kilns  they  must  add  a  charm,  for  without  it  no  iron  would 
be  forthcoming,  however  hot  the  furnace  might  be.  One 
charm  will  keep  off  witchcraft;  another  will  turn  people 
back  who  are  on  the  way  to  kill  you.  Others  will  make 
you  invisible  to  the  foe  in  battle;  others  will  render  you 
impervious  to  his  spears.  There  is  a  useful  talisman 
which  makes  your  accuser  in  the  law-court  forget  the 
charge  that  he  intended  to  bring  against  you,  and  another 
which  both  stimulates  your  own  wits  so  that  you  put  your 
case  convincingly  and  makes  your  opponents  stupid  so 
that  they  lose  their  action.  One  charm  will  turn  you  into 
a  wild  beast  when  you  die;  another  will  transform  you 
into  a  destructive  ghost,  so  that  you  may  come  back  and 
.haunt  those  who  were  unkind  to  you  in  this  life.  In 
short,  there  are  charms  to  meet  almost  every  conceivable 
.condition  or  desire. 

(c)  In  Fetishes  with  Their  Reputed  Spiritual  Poiver.— 
What  we  have  been  considering  is  dynamism,  the  belief 
in  a  mysterious  hidden  impersonal  force  which  can  be 
tapped  and  put  to  the  use  of  men.  Nowhere  has  it  been 
stated  that  these  charms  convey  the  power  of  supernatural 
beings.  If  anything  like  a  spirit  has  to  do  with  the  value 


BASIS  OF  FAITH  IN  BANTU  KELIGION  13 


of  the  charm,  the  name  given  to  the  practice  is  no  longer 
dynamism  but  fetishism,  which  has  been  defined  as  “the 
doctrine  of  spirits  embodied  in  or  attached  to,  or  convey¬ 
ing  influence  through,  certain  material  objects.”  Fetishism 
is  found  in  certain  parts  of  Africa, — in  the  Congo  terri¬ 
tory  and  in  Uganda,  for  example.  The  people  there  have 
the  usual  charms  already  described,  but  they  also  have 
other  kinds  with  which  spirits,  mostly  the  spirits  of  the, . 
departed,  are  associated.  There  may  be  little  outwardly 
to  distinguish  fetishes  from  charms ;  but  a  fetish  is  a 
charm  with  a  plus,  and  the  plus  is  the  spirit  attached  to 
it.1  Whether  the  spirit  dwells  within  the  fetish,  or  only' 
is  attached  to  it  in  some  way,  is  not  always  clear ;  but  cer¬ 
tainly  the  fetish  would  lose  most,  if  not  all  its  power,  were 
the  spirit  to  leave  it.  The  fetish  in  West  Africa  of  fen 
takes  the  form  of  a  hideous  carved  wooden  image.  When 
a  warrior  is  away  on  a  campaign  it  is  his  wife’s  duty,  to 
offer  prayers  and  beer  to  the  fetish  in  the  house  in  order 
to  keep  the  spirit  in  a  good  temper.  Should  the  warrior 
be  killed  or  wounded  in  battle,  everybody  would  be  con¬ 
vinced  that  the  woman  had  not  done  her  duty  and  that 
the  spirit  had  withdrawn  his  power  from  the  protecting 
fetish  in  consequence,  and  she  would  be  held  responsible 
for  her  husband’s  mishap.  In  Uganda  some  fetishes  have 
temples  erected  for  them,  each  with  its  attendant  priest 
and  a  medium  through  whom  the  spirit  attached  to  the 
fetish  makes  his  will  known  to  the  people.  Some  fetishes 
have  a  woman  in  attendance  who  is  regarded  as  the  wife 
of  the  spirit.  A  former  king  of  Uganda  had  a  great  fetish 
which  lived  in  a  temple  where  malefactors  were  taken  to 
be  tried ;  none  of  them  ever  returned  alive,  for  the  fetish- 

1  Others  regard  all  spirits  as  personal.  The  distinction  they  draw 
between  charms  and  fetishes  is  that  the  former  are  instinct  with 
the  spirit  of  things  and  the  latter  with  disembodied  human 
spirits.  [Ed.] 


14 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


ghost  speaking  through  his  medium  invariably  con¬ 
demned  them;  they  were  slain  there  kneeling  before  the 
fetish  and  the  report  would  be  spread  that  they  died  of 
fright  on  being  cpnvicted  by  the  fetish. 

( d )  In  the  Practice  of  Witchcraft. — Witchcraft,  the 
darkest  terror  of  the. African’s  life,  is  intimately  associ¬ 
ated  with  his  belief  in  dynamism,  for  it  is  in  virtue  of 
the  mysterious  power  manifest  in  drugs  that  the  witch 
and  warlock  act,  or  are  supposed  to  act.  The  drugs  which 
they  get  from  the  doctors  bestow  upon  them  a  kind  of 
directive  energy, — the  Ba-ila  name  it  inzuikizhi , — which 
enables  them  to  act  upon  people  over  a  distance.  They 
work  in  various  ways.  The  simplest  act  of  bewitchery  is 
to  point  with  the  index  finger  in  the  direction  of  a  person 
while  thinking,  or  mumbling,  a  desire  for  his  death. 
Christian  preachers  have  sometimes  got  themselves  into 
fearful  trouble  by  innocently  emphasizing  some  point  in 
their  sermon  by  shaking  an  index  finger  in  the  face  of 
the  congregation.  They  have  been  charged  with  bewitch¬ 
ing  their  hearers!  Another  way  is  to  stab  the  footprint 
of  a  person;  the  victim  will  be  found  bleeding  to  death. 
Or  some  hair  or  nail-clippings  which  get  into  the  war¬ 
lock’s  possession  give  him  the  necessary  hold  upon  the 
person.  Or,  having  marked  out  his  victim,  the  w’arlock 
contrives  to  get  some  third  person  to  give  him  food.  This 
may  be  some  ordinary  article  of  diet,  but,  when  it  is  swal¬ 
lowed,  it  becomes  a  snake  or  a  beetle  in  the  throat  or 
stomach  of  the  victim.  It  is  not  necessarv  even  to  do  this ; 
the  warlock,  while  eating  at  home,  may  simply  direct  his 
occult  power  in  his  enemy’s  direction  and,  if  he  too  is  eat¬ 
ing  at  the  same  moment,  his  food  will  make  him  ill.  The 
witch  can  send  a  crocodile  or  lion  or  snake  to  attack  her 
victim  or  she  can  turn  herself  into  one  of  those  animals 
and  do  the  deed  herself.  She  mav  obtain  human  flesh, 

v  7 


BASIS  OF  FAITH  IN  BANTU  RELIGION  15 


boil  it,  mix  some  herbs  with  the  gravy  and  sprinkle  it  in 
the  field  of  the  man  whom  she  wishes  to  kill ;  then  all  who 

i  ' 

partake  of  the  grain  growing  in  the  field  will  die.  More¬ 
over,  witches  and  warlocks  have  the  weird  power  of  un¬ 
sheathing  their  personality.  Leaving  their  body  lying  on 
the  bed  at  home,  they  wander  off  in  the  night,  enter  some 
person’s  house  through  the  roof  and  consume  his  vitality, 
so  that  while  he  may  appear  to  be  alive  for  a  few  days 
longer,  he  has  really  ceased  to  exist  and  very  shortly  aft¬ 
erwards  dies  in  earnest.  Such  a  person  often  becomes  the 
warlock’s  familiar;  that  is  to  say,  in  the  ghostly  state  he 
is  in  the  service  of  the  warlock  who  sends  him  on  em¬ 
bassies  of  death  and  destruction.  The  familiar  may  go  in 
the  form  of  a  little  sprite, — or  the  warlock  himself  as¬ 
sumes  this  form, — enters  through  the  roof  and  sits  on  a 
beam,  where  it  gibbers  and  chirps,  to  the  terror  of  the 
person  lying  in  the  room  who  often  dies  of  fright  or  goes 
mad. 

Witches  and  wizards,  naturally,  do  not  perform  their 
devil  tricks  in  the  open,  but  in  secret;  indeed  some  peo¬ 
ples  in  Africa  believe  that  the  warlock  is  not  conscious  of, 
his  own  doings  but  performs  them,  as  it  were,  in  his  sleep. 
It  becomes  necessary,  therefore,  to  take  measures  to  dis¬ 
cover  them  and  put  a  stop  to  their  crimes.  In  some  parts 
of  Africa  it  was  the  custom,  and  perhaps  still  is,  to  have 
a  periodical  cleaning-up.  Picture  the  scene, — under  the 
tropical  stars,  in  a  village  surrounded  by  dense  forest 
whence  comes  at  intervals  the  cry  of  some  wandering  wild 
beast.  The  people  are  all  assembled.  They  pass  in  file, 
one  by  one,  before  the  doctor  who  administers  to  each  a 
portion  of  some  horrible  brew.  It  is  done  with  intense 
solemnity,  under  conditions  calculated  to  impress  the 
minds  of  all.  Indeed  some  are  overpowered  and  scream 
out  a  confession  of  witchcraft  before  ever  passing  the  doc- 


16 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


tor.  The  “medicine,”  which  all  are  required  to  take,  is 
supposed  to  intoxicate  only  those  who  are  mixed  up  with 
witchcraft.  Presently  here  and  there  in  the  crowd  a  man 
or  woman  is  observed  whose  legs  totter  or  whose  head 
wobbles,  and  they  are  borne  off  to  death  amid  loud 
acclamation. 

Of  course,  people  are  on  the  watch  in  every  community 
for  suspicious  characters.  Whenever  any  one  dies  in  an 
unaccountable  manner,  some  unfortunate  person  is  sure 
to  he  accused  of  causing  his  death.  Indeed,  it  is  a  wide¬ 
spread  belief  in  Africa  that  nobody  dies  what  we  call  a 
natural  death ;  all  such  deaths  are  due  to  witchcraft.  Sus¬ 
pected  persons  are  haled  before  the  diviner,  who  by  vir¬ 
tue  of  occult  powers  acquired  through  drugs,  is  able,  by 
many  methods,  to  detect  the  guilty  one.  If  there  is  any 
doubt  about  it,  the  suspect  will  be  forced  to  go  through 
the  ordeal,  or  will  himself  volunteer  to  go  through  it.  He 
will  have  to  pick  stones  out  of  a  big  pot  of  boiling  water ; 
and  if  his  arm  shows  any  sign  of  blistering  he  will  he  held 
guilty.  Or  he  will  be  made  to  swallow  a  kind  of  poison. 
If  he  dies  under  it,  or  if  it  purges  him,  he  is  guilty;  if 
he  vomits  or  shows  no  sign,  he  is  pronounced  innocent. 
Warlocks  and  witches  of  this  description  are  shown  no 
mercy,  for  theirs  is  the  most  heinous  crime  known  to  the 
African.  It  is  the  crime  of  murder  or,  at  least,  of  caus¬ 
ing  sickness  and  misfortune  out  of  malice.  Civilized  gov¬ 
ernments,  acting  on  the  belief  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  witchcraft,  do  their  utmost  to  put  down  the  practice  of 
tracing  and  punishing  witches.  To  the  African  this  is 
the  sheerest  of  follies.  It  is  as  if  one  were  to  decree 
that  murderers,  or  at  any  rate  some  murderers,  were  not 
to  he  sought  out  and  condemned.  We  cannot  wonder  that, 
believing  as  they  do,  Africans  treat  witches  and  war- 
locks  so  cruelly.  They  are  clubbed,  or  hanged,  or  impaled, 


BASIS  OF  FAITH  IN  BANTU  RELIGION  17 


or  drowned,  or  flayed  while  still  conscious  and  cut  up  into 
pieces  and  burnt,  or,  while  alive,  they  are  laid  on  a  pile 
of  wood  and  burnt  to  death,  or  they  are  pegged  down  in 
the  path  of  the  warrior-ants  which  torment,  kill  and  leave 
the  bones  white  in  the  sun. 

All  this  has  been  narrated  as  matter  of  fact  and  as  if 
there  were  no  supposition  about  it.  To  the  Bantu  there 
is  no  supposition.  They  are  as  convinced  that  the  witch 
and  warlock  work  in  the  ways  described  as  we  are  con¬ 
vinced  about  our  own  existence.  The  conviction  colors 
their  whole  life.  Just  try  to  imagine  what  life  must  he 
under  such  conditions!  Where  any  unoffending  person 
may  at  any  time  be  accused  of  causing  sickness  and  death, 
where  every  one  suspects  his  fellow,  and  where  all  live  in 
such  incessant  fear  of  unknown  enemies,  life,  one  would 
think,  is  hardly  worth  living.  The  diviners  are  often  ras¬ 
cals  who  for  gain  or  to  maintain  their  prestige  denounce 
people  who  never  had  the  slightest  wish  to  dabble  in  the 
occult.  Dr.  Bentley  tells  of  a  woman  witch  who  on  retir¬ 
ing  from  business  confessed  that  she  had  denounced  two 
hundred  people,  the  majority  of  whom  she  knew  to  have 
been  innocent.  Myriads  of  innocent  persons  have  been 
hurried  to  a  shameful  and  cruel  death.  Millions  of  people 
have  lived  beneath  the  shadow  of  this  terrible  belief  for 
centuries.  It  is  a  greater  curse  to  Africa  than  ever  the 
slave-trade  was.  Who  can  measure  its  baneful  effect  in 
preventing  the  progress  of  the  Bantu?  Men  simply  do 
not  dare  to  be  more  industrious  and  to  accumulate  more 
wealth  than  their  fellows ;  they  dare  not  show  great  skill ; 
they  do  not  venture  out  upon  new  paths  of  progress,  for 
fear  they  will  be  condemned  by  public  opinion  of  being 
concerned  with  witchcraft. 

(e)  In  the  Tabu  Which  Forbids. — Another  thing  in  the 
life  of  the  Bantu,  intimately  associated  with  dynamism, 


18 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


is  the  extensive  system  of  tabu  which  regulates  individual 
and  social  conduct.  Sometimes  in  our  streets  and  facto¬ 
ries  we  see  a  prominently  displayed  notice: 

DEATH  !!  ! 

DO  NOT  TOUCH  THIS  WIRE!!! 

That  is  what  the  Bantu  mean  when  they  forbid  the  doing 
or  saying  of  certain  things ;  they  are  issuing  a  danger  sig¬ 
nal;  they  are  labeling  the  deeds  and  words  as  danger¬ 
ous,  tabu.  We  do  not  mean  that  every  prohibition  is  to 
he  classed  as  a  tabu.  The  Bantu  have  a  host  of  laws, 
the  infringement  of  which  is  punished  by  the  chief  and 
elders  of  the  village.  The  peculiarity  of  a  true  tabu  is 
that  the  offender  is  not  punished  by  his  fellows;  the  evil 
consequence  follows  the  act  as  inevitably  as  a  shock  fol¬ 
lows  upon  touching  a  live  wire.  By  doing  certain  things 
or  by  saying  certain  words,  a  man  presses  the  trigger 
which  releases  the  hidden  mysterious  energies  of  which  we 
have  previously  spoken,  and  they  at  once  react  against 
him.  It  is  not  easy  for  a  civilized  person  to  realize  the 
tremendous  part  that  tabu  plays  in  the  life  of  the  Bantu. 
From  the  cradle  to  the  grave  they  are  hedged  round  by 
“dont’s.”  The  prohibitions  comprise  not  only  many  things 
that  we  ourselves  recognize  to  be  contrary  to  the  moral  law, 
but  also,  and  much  more,  many  things  that  to  us  seem  to 
have  nothing  to  do  with  ethics.  We,  for  example,  are  not 
guided  by  conscience  in  matters  of  food;  some  things 
disgust  us,  other  things  make  us  ill,  others  are  not  ac¬ 
cording  to  our  taste,  hence  we  refrain  from  eating  them ; 
but  we  do  not  consider  our  action  as  a  matter  of  right 
and  wrong.  We  have  learned  the  Master’s  lesson  that 
there  is  nothing  from  without  the  man  that  going  into 
him  can  defile  him — that  is  to  say,  is  tabu — but  the  things 


BASIS  OF  FAITH  IN  BANTU  RELIGION  19 


which  proceed  out  of  the  man  are  those  that  defile  him; 
“this  He  said  making  all  meats  clean.”  It  is  different 
with  the  Bantu.  It  is  tabu  to  eat  this  and  tabu  to  eat 
that ;  if  you  eat  you  will  inevitably  suffer.  Some  of  these 
tabus  are  ordered  by  the  doctor ;  he  may  prohibit  some¬ 
thing  to  a  child  who  thereafter,  either  for  life  or  until  he 
grows  up,  may  not  eat  the  thing  named.  One  child,  for 
example,  may  not  eat  hippopotamus  flesh;  if  he  eats  it, 
he  will  become  a  leper.  Another  may  not  eat  the  great 
ezunda  frog,  or  his  eyes  would  swell  and  become  big  like 
the  frog’s.  Likewise  there  are  tabus  applicable  only  to 
women.  Girls  and  young  married  women  may  not  eat  the 
hare,  the  porcupine  and  the  monkey;  should  they  break 
this  rule  their  children  would  be  like  those  animals.  It 
would  be  unprofitable  to  enumerate  all  the  things,  other 
than  foods,  that  may  he  tabu ;  the  point  to  remember  is 
that  by  eating  certain  things,  by  saying  certain  words,  by 
doing  certain  actions,  a  man  may  liberate  the  mysterious 
world-energy  surrounding  him  with  fatal  consequences 
to  himself  and  to  his  neighbors.  Persons  in  certain  con¬ 
ditions,  and  things  put  to  certain  uses,  thereby  come  into 
intimate  contact  with  this  unknown  power  and  are  there¬ 
fore  in  a  state  of  tabu.  It  is  as  if  at  certain  times  the  sep¬ 
arating  medium  between  it  and  men  become  attenuated, — 
the  insulating  rubber,  so  to  speak,  gets  worn  off  the  live 
wire, — and  people  then  enter  into  intimate  relation  with 
its  mysterious  working.  Death  is  the  great  cause  that 
brings  men  into  this  dangerous  position  and  therefore 
mourners,  widows,  widowers,  warriors  home  from  battle, 
are  all  in  a  state  of  tahu.  As  such  they  have  to  go  through 
elaborate  rites  of  purification,  before  they  can  resume 
their  normal  life  in  the  community. 

(/)  These  Practices  do  not  Lack  Moral  Value. — This 
all  very  well  illustrates  the  distinction  we  are  accustomed 


20 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


to  draw  between  a  moral  and  a  ceremonial  law ;  and  it  is  a 
sign  of  weakness  in  ethical  discrimination  on  the  part  of 
the  Bantu  when  they  rate  a  breach  of  ceremonial  a  greater 
offence  than  a  breach  of  the  moral  law.  They  so  often 
call  a  thing  bad  that  really  has  no  ethical  quality  at  all, 
while  many  actions  that  are  really  bad  they  pass  over  with 
little  or  no  censure.  At  the  same  time  it  must  be  recog¬ 
nized  that  this  tabu-belief  has  been  a  good  training  and 
preparation  for  the  time  when  the  Bantu  should  have  the 
higher  morality  taught  them.  We  may  call  it  morality 
of  a  low  grade,  but  it  is  better  than  none.  Many  of  the 
actions  that  the  highest  ethics  condemns  are  condemned 
by  the  tabu-morality,  not  for  the  same  reasons,  not  for  the 
best  reasons,  but  still  condemned.  Incest  is  tabu,  some 
kinds  of  homicide  are  tabu,  suicide  is  tabu.  These  of¬ 
fences  may  he  committed  very  largely  within  a  tribe,  but 
the  people  believe  they  cannot  be  committed  with  im¬ 
punity.  Among  many  Bantu  tribes,  for  example,  if  a 
man  kills  his  mother,  although  he  is  not  brought  before 
the  chief  and  sentenced  to  capital  punishment  he  does  not 
escape ;  his  penalty  is  more  awful  than  any  human  tribunal 
can  inflict.  That  mysterious  underlying  world-energy 
reacts  against  him  in  the  form  of  a  curse.  To  Anglo- 
Saxons  a  curse  is  little  more  than  “words,  words,  words” 
that  cannot  have  any  serious  effect  upon  one;  the  Bantu 
believe  that  a  curse  is  charged  with  some  of  the  mys¬ 
terious  potency  of  which  we  have  spoken,  and  especially 
the  curse  pronounced  by  a  near  relation.  Nor  is  it  neces¬ 
sary  that  a  curse  be  declared;  if  one  does  anything  to  a 
parent  that  might  call  down  his  or  her  curse,  the  conse¬ 
quences  will  follow.  The  matricide  is  never  safe;  go 
where  he  will,  do  what  he  may,  vengeance  dogs  his  steps 
and  on  any  day  may  overtake  him;  sooner  or  later  he 
will  come  to  a  miserable  end. 


BASIS  OF  FAITH  IN  BANTU  RELIGION  21 


So  then  this  belief  is  not  without  some  considerable  in¬ 
fluence  for  good  upon  the  people.  We  may  hardly  like  to 
call  dynamism  a  religion,  but  it  certainly  is  a  belief  that 
makes  for  righteousness  in  some  directions. 


IV 


THE  COMPLEX  CONCEPTION  OF 
PERSONALITY 

Let  us  now  advance  another  step  in  our  study,  from 
dynamism  to  animism,  from  forces  affecting  a  man  from 
without  to  those  which  develop  within  himself.  In  order 
that  what  follows  may  be  intelligible,  we  must  first  con¬ 
sider  the  ideas  of  the  Bantu  in  regard  to  the  human  soul. 
The  Bantu  believe  not  only  in  the  mysterious  impersonal 
potency  with  which  we  have  been  dealing  hitherto ;  they 
believe  in  pyschic  beings,  intelligent,  purposeful,  personal 
powers,  that  may  be  associated  for  a  time  with  material 
things,  yet  have  a  distinct  and  separate  life  of  their  own. 
This  is  animism.  The  Bantu  seem  to  think  that  in  man 
both  this  potency  and  these  powers  are  in  operation; 
hence  their  conception  of  the  human  personality  is  a  very 
complex  one.  The  subject  is  a  very  difficult  one  to  make 
clear,  but  perhaps  some  aspects  of  it  may  be  set  forth  in 
the  limited  space  available. 

1.  The  Vital  Principle  Exists  Apart  from  the  Body 

( a )  It  is  Transmissible . — Let  us  begin  with  the  fact 
that  the  Zulus  and  other  Bantu  eat  the  flesh  of  long-lived 
animals  in  order  that  they  themselves  may  live  longer. 
Evidently  the  world-energy  assumes  the  form  of  longevity 
in  those  animals  and  by  consuming  their  flesh  men  can 
transfer  that  energy  to  themselves.  It  is  only  a  step  from 
that  to  eating  the  flesh  of  men  in  order  to  assimilate  the 

22 


COMPLEX  CONCEPTION  OF  PERSONALITY  23 


world-energy  which  takes  the  form  of  strength  and  valor 
in  them.  We  are  here  at  the  root  of  the  cannibalism  prac¬ 
ticed  by  so  many  Bantu  tribes.  In  many  other  tribes 
where  cannibalism  is  not  the  general  custom,  and  where  it 
may  even  be  regarded  with  the  utmost  horror,  warriors 
nevertheless,  will,  as  part  of  the  ritual  of  victory,  eat  the 
heart  and  liver  and  other  organs  of  a  brave  enemy  slain  in 
battle  in  order  to  absorb  his  courage,  wisdom  and  per¬ 
severance.  In  fact,  the  flesh  and  blood  of  an  enemy  killed 
in  battle  make  the  most  efficacious  of  all  charms,  one  that 
is  put  to  a  great  many  uses: — seed  is  smeared  with  it  to 
ensure  a  good  harvest,  hunters  inoculate  themselves  with 
it  to  give  them  skill,  and  so  on. 

( b )  It  is  Focussed  in  Various  Organs. — In  the  liver  the 
vital  principle  is  found  as  patience,  in  the  spleen  as 
hatred,  in  the  heart  as  intellect  and  will,  in  the  chest  as 
intelligence  and  eloquence,  in  the  diaphragm  as  con¬ 
science.  The  Bantu  to  a  large  extent  personalize  these  or¬ 
gans:  “My  heart  leads  me/’  they  say;  “My  chest  told 
me.”  They  often  ascribe  what  we  should  call  the  vital 
processes  to  curious  quasi-personal  creatures  that  are  sup¬ 
posed  to  live  in  the  organs.  In  the  ear  there  is  one  whose 
function  is  to  hear  and  secrete  wax;  in  the  bony  protu¬ 
berance  behind  the  ear  there  is  another  associated  with 
taste ;  and  some  Bantu  account  for  the  processes  of  repro¬ 
duction  by  the  working  of  similar  creatures.  They  re¬ 
ceive  personal  names  and  are  spoken  of  as  if  they  were 
self-acting  individuals. 

(c)  It  is  Separable. — Many  of  the  Bantu  believe  that 
the  vital  principle  can  be  removed  from  the  body  and 
placed  for  safety  in  some  secure  spot.  A  man  will  go  to 
a  doctor  and  tell  him  that  he  is  anxious  thus  to  safeguard 
his  life.  The  doctor  will,  in  return  for  a  handsome  fee, 
apply  to  him  a  very  powerful  charm  which  will  abstract 


24 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


his  life  and  put  it,  say,  in  a  palm  tree  or  in  another 
man’s  eye, — wherever  the  patient  may  wish.  Henceforth 
a  very  close  connection  subsists  between  the  two.  Should 
the  palm  tree  fall,  or  should  the  other  man  have  his  eye 
destroyed,  at  the  same  instant  the  man  would  die.  Should, 
on  the  other  hand,  another  person,  by  virtue  of  some  more 
powerful  charm,  succeed  in  killing  the  man,  at  the  same 
moment  the  palm  would  fall  or  the  other  man’s  eye  would 
burst,  and  people  would  thus  discover  what  they  did  not 
know  before,  where  the  man’s  life  had  been  hid.  Among 
some  tribes  a  cultivated  plant  of  some  kind  is  planted  be¬ 
hind  the  house  when  a  child  is  born,  and  thenceforth 
carefully  tended,  for  it  is  believed  that  were  it  to  wither 
away  the  child  would  die.  These  are  instances  of  what 
has  been  named  “the  external  soul.” 

2.  A  Murdered  Man  and  Certain  Slain  Animals  Have  an 

Aura  or  “Nuru” 

Many  of  the  Bantu  believe  that  there  is  another  ele¬ 
ment  in  man;  the  Ba-thonga  name  it  the  nuru.  It  is  a 
kind  of  aura  or  influence  that  emanates  from  the  body  of 
a  murdered  man  and  also  from  the  corpses  of  certain  large 
animals  such  as  the  eland.  It  may  remain  attached  for  a 
long  time  to  the  skull  of  a  man  who  was  murdered  and 
never  buried.  The  murderer,  the  hunter,  the  warrior,  or 
he  who  interferes  with  the  skull,  may,  unless  he  is 
promptly  medicated  with  drugs  by  the  doctor,  be  driven 
into  insanity  by  the  nuru.  This  is  not  the  ghost  of  the 
man  or  animal;  it  is  something  else  that  lies  dormant  in 
the  living  person  and  remains  with  the  corpse. 

3.  One's  Name  Is  a  Part  of  His  Being 

We  are  coming  to  see  that  the  constitution  of  man  is, 
in  the  opinion  of  the  Bantu,  very  complex.  And  we  must 


COMPLEX  CONCEPTION  OF  PEPSONALITY  25 


not  omit  to  notice  that  they  regard  a  person’s  name  as  also 
a  part  of  his  personality.  The  name  is  not  a  mere  label. 
If  one  asks  an  unsophisticated  native  to  give  his  name,  he 
will  look  very  confused  and  will  either  turn  to  some  by¬ 
stander  and  ask  him  to  reply,  or  he  will  make  up  a  fic¬ 
titious  name,  or  he  will  repeat  one  of  his  nicknames 
which  have  not  the  sacred  character  that  his  real  name 
has.  It  is  tabu  for  him  to  pronounce  his  name.  Neither 
a  person  nor  a  thing  is  precisely  the  same  without  a  name 
as  with  it.  We  do  not  err  if  we  say  that  the  name  is  part 
of  the  man’s  personality.  This  is  an  idea  quite  foreign 
to  westerners,  but  we  can  easily  understand  how  the  un¬ 
tutored  Bantu  reach  this  conclusion.  When  you  pro¬ 
nounce  a  name  what  happens?  You  produce  a  sound; 
in  other  words,  vibrations  which  impinge  upon  the  ear¬ 
drum  of  another;  it  is  as  if  something  has  gone  out  from 
you  which  enters  into  another  person.  The  Bantu  know 
nothing  about  air-waves,  but  they  are  sure  that  when  they 
utter  their  name  something  goes  out  from  themselves  that 
is  an  intimate  part  of  themselves, — some  part  of  their 
life.  When  you  have  their  name,  you  have  them.  There 
is  a  little  animal  in  Africa  which  some  name  Chinao ; 
they  also  call  it  “that-which-may-not-be-named-bv-chil- 
dren.”  It  is  said  to  be  subject  to  periodical  fits.  If  one 
names  it  in  a  child’s  presence,  or  if  the  child  names  it,  the 
name,  so  the  people  say,  enters  the  child  and  makes  it  epi¬ 
leptic,  just  as  the  animal  is  itself  epileptic.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  the  Chinao,  one  might  say  that  the  child 
robs  it  of  something  by  the  act  of  uttering  its  name.  Simi¬ 
larly,  if  a  person  mentions  his  true  name,  he  gives  away 
a  part  of  himself.  An  evilly  disposed  person  can  use  the 
name,  which  is  part  of  him,  to  the  detriment  of  the 
whole  of  him,  just  as  getting  hold  of  a  lock  of  some  one’s 
hair  enables  an  enemy  to  bewitch  him  by  means  of  it. 


26 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


4.  The  Dead  Often  Return  to  Be  Reborn 

The  belief  of  the  Bantu  in  reincarnation  is  intimately 
associated  with  their  belief  as  to  names,  for  the  real  name 
which  a  man  hears  is  the  name  of  the  ancestor  who  is  re¬ 
born  in  him,  a  part  of  the  personality  that  survives  many 
deaths  and  returns  to  the  earth  in  many  generations. 
When  a  child  is  born  in  the  home  the  parents  are  natu¬ 
rally  anxious  to  ascertain  which  of  the  forebears  it  is  who 
has  returned  to  this  world.  They  bring  in  the,  diviner 
who  says  over  the  names  of  the  various  ancestors  and  di¬ 
vines  from  the  child’s  demeanor  which  of  them  the  child 
is ;  that  is  to  say,  the  person  reborn  recognizes  his  own 
name  and  on  hearing  it  gives  a  sign ;  naturally,  therefore, 
the  child  is  given  the  name  it  bore  in  a  previous  sojourn 
upon  earth ;  and  how  many  soever  nicknames  he  may 
come  to  have  later  in  life,  this  is  the  real  sacred  name, 
part  of  that  ego  which  persists  from  generation  to 
generation. 

5.  Even  One's  Shadow  Belongs  to  His  Personality 

We  have  already  seen  how  the  warlock  and  witch  are 
supposed  to  have  the  strange  power  of  going  out  of  them¬ 
selves  in  order  to  plague  others  and  how  they  can  also 
rob  a  person  of  his  vital  essence.  It  is  not  only  the  Bantu 
magicians  who  have  this  last-named  power;  the  foreigner 
armed  with  his  camera  also  appears  to  the  unsophisticated 
African  as  desirous  of  making  off  with  some  part  of  him. 
If  one  wants  to  take  a  photograph  of  a  child,  the  parents 
will  very  likely  object  strongly.  No,  they  will  say,  it 
will  take  away  the  child’s  shadow,  so  that  he  will  die. 
And  when  you  show  them  pictures  of  people,  dead  or 
alive,  on  the  lantern  screen,  they  are  much  perturbed, 
and  you  may  hear  them  say:  “Yes,  we  knew  that  he  had 
put  their  shadows  in  his  box;  see,  here  they  are  again!” 


COMPLEX  CONCEPTION  OF  PERSONALITY  27 


A  story  is  told  of  a  magician  who  used  to  exhibit  his  oc¬ 
cult  powers  by  telling  women  to  place  a  big  wooden  mor¬ 
tar  on  his  chest  and  to  pound  grain  in  it  while  he  slept; 
the  heavy  thumping  made  no  impression  upon  him;  he 
went  on  sleeping  calmly.  On  another  day,  one  of  the 
women  unintentionally  hit  his  shadow  with  her  pestle  and 
the  magician  at  once  awoke  with  a  loud  cry;  he  had  all 
the  time  been  out  of  his  body  in  his  shadow.  Many 
Bantu  dislike  having  any  one  tread  on  their  shadow  or  to 
have  their  shadow  speared.  Children  are  warned  not  to 
allow  the  fire  to  cast  their  shadow  upon  the  wall  of  the 
house,  lest  they  should  die  from  having  seen  themselves 
as  a  shadow. 

The  Bantu,  then,  it  is  evident,  attach  great  importance 
to  the  shadow  of  a  person.  Do  they  actually  believe  that 
the  shadow  is  a  part  of  themselves  ?  The  writer  has  heard 
natives  strongly  deny  it,  while  maintaining  some  of  the 
prohibitions  already  alluded  to.  It  would  seem  rather 
that  they  think  of  the  soul  as  a  shadow,  because  it  is  as 
elusive  as  a  shadow,  just  as  they  speak  of  it  sometimes  as 
“breath”  and  “wind,”  because  it  is  as  intangible  and  mys¬ 
terious  as  these.  Many  people  believe  that  in  the  Bantu 
conception  a  person  has  two  or  three  or  more  souls.  It 
may  be  that  this  is  the  correct  view  to  take ;  but  it  will  be 
sufficient  for  us  here  to  view  these  four  elements  of  per¬ 
sonality, — the  vital  principle,  the  nuru,  the  name  and 
the  shadow, — as  phases  of  that  inner  mysterious  life 
which  they  recognize,  but  which  they,  no  more  than  our¬ 
selves,  have  yet  come  to  understand. 

The  time  inevitably  arrives  when  this  mysterious  per¬ 
sonality  of  ours  undergoes  a  change.  Death  comes  and 
separates  the  material  body  from  the  spiritual;  the  body 
decays,  but  the  man  himself  survives.  That  death  is  not 
the  end  of  all  is  the  firm  belief  of  the  Bantu. 


V 


THE  SURVIVAL  OF  THE  PERSONALITY 

The  funeral  customs  of  the  Bantu  make  it  clear  that 
they,  like  us,  assume  that  personality  continues  after 
death. 

1.  A  Funeral  in  Pagan  Africa 

No  one  who  has  attended  a  funeral  in  heathen  Africa 
will  ever  forget  it.  It  is  one  of  the  saddest,  most  pathetic 
scenes  on  earth.  The  corpse,  with  some  exceptions,  is 
buried  either  in  the  hut,  or  in  the  cattle-kraal  or  out  in 
the  forest  away  from  the  village.  Some  corpses  are 
eaten,  some  are  burnt,  some  are  cast  to  the  wild  beasts; 
but  interment  in  the  soil  is  the  general  rule  among  the 
Bantu.  The  body  is  often  elaborately  anointed  and 
clothed.  Among  some  tribes  it  is  embalmed  and  kept  for 
a  long  time  before  being  buried,  but  generally  the  burial 
follows  quickly  upon  death.  Crowds  of  people  flock  to 
the  funeral,  the  men  dressed  as  for  war.  The  real  mourn¬ 
ers  are  very  sincere  and  demonstrative  in  their  grief;  as 
long  as  the  mourning  ceremonies  last  they  neither  wash 
nor  shave,  they  wear  old  tattered  rags  and  present  a  most 
miserable  appearance.  The  writer  recalls  the  figure  made 
by  one  of  his  friends,  an  important  chief,  at  the  funeral  of 
a  relative.  He  was  coated  from  head  to  foot  with  white 
ashes  and  wore  the  scantiest  bit  of  cloth  around  his  loins, 
With  a  broken  stick  in  one  hand  and  a  wildebeest  tail, 

28 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  PERSONALITY 


29 


containing  “medicine,”  in  the  other,  he  was  wandering 
about  disconsolately  alone.  As  he  stood,  with  his  long 
thin  shanks  and  wizened  body,  gesticulating  with  the  tail 
and  shouting  as  if  expostulating  with  death,  he  presented 
a  most  pathetic  figure.  Every  now  and  then  he  would 
flop  down,  wallow  in  the  dust  and  throw  ashes  over  him¬ 
self.  When  after  a  time  he  came  over  to  speak  to  me, 
the  old  man  was  quite  exhausted.  At  the  same  time 
there  were  three  old  women  sitting  together,  the  picture 
of  grief,  their  arms  around  each  other.  A  son,  a  lad  of 
fourteen,  was  lying  on  an  ash  heap,  his  body  shaking 
with  sobs.  On  the  grave  four  of  the  deceased  man’s 
wives  were  lying  as  if  lifeless.  There  was  no  doubt  as  to 
the  reality  of  the  grief  of  these  mourners.  Of  others, 
since  they  seemed  rather  to  welcome  a  funeral  as  an  oc¬ 
casion  for  feasting,  there  is  more  reason  to  doubt.  But 
while  the  Bantu  grieve,  as  we  in  our  quieter  fashion 
grieve  when  a  friend  or  relative  leaves  us,  they  no  more 
than  we  believe  that  the  dead  are  extinct.  Many  things 
done  by  them  at  a  funeral  show  this  clearly.  Before  the 
grave  is  filled  up,  members  of  the  family  kneel  around 
it  and  place  various  things  upon  the  corpse — a  calabash  of 
beer  or  milk,  some  seeds,  a  pipe  and  a  lump  of  tobacco. 
The  corpse  has  already  been  wrapped  up  in  skins  and 
blankets.  This  is  all  done  in  the  belief  that  the  deceased 
will  require  these  things  in  the  other  world ;  he  takes 
them,  or  rather  the  immaterial  counterparts  of  them, 
whither  he  goes.  Finally  they  bid  him  farewell :  “Good¬ 
bye  !  Do  not  forget  us !  See,  we  have  given  you  tobacco 
to  smoke  and  food  to  eat!  A  good  journey  to  you!  Tell 
old  friends  who  died  before  you  that  you  left  us  living 
well !”  The  wake  may  be  kept  up  for  a  month,  and  per¬ 
haps  a  year  elapses  before  the  obsequies  are  finally 
concluded. 


30  THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 

2.  The  Killing  of  Cattle  and  Slaves  at  Funerals 

As  a  rule  many  cattle  are  killed  during  a  funeral.  In 
the  part  of  Africa  where  the  writer  lived  longest,  as  many 
as  a  hundred  would  be  killed  and  consumed  during  the 
period  of  mourning  for  an  important  person.  It  was  the 
ambition  of  every  man  to  accumulate  as  many  fine  bul¬ 
locks  as  he  could  acquire  to  be  killed  and  eaten  at  his 
own  funeral.  The  idea  is  not  simply  to  sustain  the  ener¬ 
gies  of  the  mourners,  but  also  to  provide  the  deceased 
with  cattle  in  the  other  world.  More  than  this,  a  man, 
especially  a  man  of  consequence,  has  need,  the  Bantu 
argue,  of  slaves  and  wives  and  children  to  serve  and 
cherish  him  in  the  world  to  which  he  is  going.  There  is 
only  one  way  of  providing  him  with  them,  they  must  be 
killed.  This  line  of  thought  accounts  for  one  of  the  cruel- 
est  of  all  the  cruel  practices  of  the  Bantu.  Dr.  Bentley 
has  described  the  custom  as  it  existed  in  his  time  among 
the  Congo  people  ;  he  tells  us  that  among  the  Ba-kuba  of 
the  Upper  Kasai,  on  the  death  of  the  king  or  of  his  sister, 
the  funeral  could  not  take  place  until  three  hundred  slaves 
had  been  killed.  He  adds :  “Some  people  give  the  number 
at  one  thousand,  but  three  hundred  is  a  safer  figure.”  Let 
us  follow  his  blood-curdling  description :  “In  a  house  near 
by  are  ten  men,  secured  in  forked  sticks  and  firmly  tied ; 
they  are  to  accompany  him  (i.e.,  the  deceased).  Among 
the  weeping  wives  are  three  or  four  designated  to  attend 
upon  him  in  the  spirit  world ;  which  is  kept  a  secret  as 
yet,  and  the  life  of  none  of  the  wives  is  sure.  .  .  .  When 
all  is  ready,  the  body  is  brought  out.  The  executioner 
has  given  the  last  touch  to  his  huge  knife.  The  crowd 
gathers  in  an  open  space  about  a  strange  wooden  seat. 
The  unfortunate  slaves  are  brought.  One  of  them  is 
placed  in  the  seat  and  fastened  to  it.  A  tall  flexible  pole 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  PERSONALITY 


31 


is  stuck  into  the  ground  at  some  distance  behind  the  seat. 
From  the  top  of  the  pole  a  cage-like  arrangement  is  sus¬ 
pended  by  a  cord.  The  pole  is  bent  down  and  the  cage 
is  fitted  to  the  unfortunate  man’s  head.  He  is  blind¬ 
folded,  but  he  knows  what  is  coming,  for  he  has  been 
present  before,  at  like  functions,  when  others  were  placed 
on  the  fatal  seat  with  laughter  and  much  merriment. 
The  executioner  commences  to  dance  and  make  feints ; 
at  last,  with  a  fearful  yell,  he  decapitates  his  victim  by 
one  sweep  of  the  huge  knife.  The  pole  thus  released 
springs  the  head  into  the  air.  The  crowd  yells  with  de¬ 
light  and  excitement.  The  body  is  unbound  and  a  new 
victim  placed  on  the  seat.  The  horror  is  repeated  until 
the  ten  slaves  have  rejoined  their  master.  .  .  .  The 
marked  women  are  seized,  four  of  them;  a  few  blows 
with  a  heavy  stock  suffices  to  break  their  arms  and  legs 
and  they  too  are  placed  in  the  grave,  living,  but  unable 
to  scramble  out.  The  body  of  their  dead  lord  is  then 
placed  upon  the  groaning  women  and  the  earth  is  filled 
in.”  1 

In  Uganda,  too,  years  ago,  when  the  king,  the  queen,  or 
the  queen-mother  died,  hundreds  of  people  were  slain. 
The  royal  wives  were  placed  at  intervals  around  the  tomb, 
were  clubbed  to  death  and  left  there  unburied.  The 
Uganda  people  disapproved  of  their  king  visiting  the 
grave  of  his  predecessor  more  than  once,  and  very  natu¬ 
rally,  too,  for  on  such  a  visit  hundreds  of  people  had  to  be 
killed  to  increase  the  deceased  sovereign’s  retinue.  Simi¬ 
lar  customs  are  found  in  other  parts  of  Africa.  Some 
tribes  killed  a  slave  and  placed  him  over  the  tomb  in  a 
sitting  posture,  with  a  bow  in  his  hand  and  an  upright 
stake  driven  through  his  body.  Others, — but  enough  of 
these  horrors ! 

1  Bentley,  W.  H.,  Pioneering  on  the  Congo ,  Vol.  I,  pp.  254,  255. 


32 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


3.  The  Destination  of  the  Departed 

There  would  seem  to  be  the  same  confusion  of  thought 
in  the  mind  of  the  Bantu  that  there  is  in  many  of  our 
minds.  We  speak  of  our  beloved  dead  as  if  they  were  in 
heaven,  while  at  the  same  time  many  of' us  think  of  them 
as  ever  near  us.  Some  among  us  also  naturally  cling  to 
the  idea  that  they  sleep  their  last  long  sleep  in  God’s 
acre.  So  the  African  will  say,  in  almost  the  same  breath, 
that  the  dead  have  gone  to  a  great  village  under  the  earth, 
where  everything  is  pure  and  where  they  till  the  fields 
and  reap  abundant  harvests ;  that  they  have  gone  to  some 
far  country  in  the  east  or  north;  that  they  are  in  the 
forest  surrounding  their  earthly  home ;  that  they  are  in 
the  house  inhabited  by  the  living;  that  they  are  wander¬ 
ing  about  in  the  guise  of  wild  animals;  that  they  are  in 
the  grave,  which  is  the  house  of  the  dead.  When  we  recall 
the  fact  that  most,  if  not  all,  Bantu  believe  that 
the  dead  for  the  most  part  return  to  be  reborn,  we  shall 
get  an  idea  of  what  some  people  call  the  confusion  of 
thought  which  characterizes  the  Bantu;  others  with  per¬ 
haps  equal  reason  regard  it  as  metaphysical  subtlety. 


VI 


THE  CULT  OF  THE  DEAD 

We  have  now  reached  the  point  where  we  can  study 
the  cult  of  the  dead,  or,  to  give  it  the  more  usual  name, 
the  ancestor  worship  of  the  Bantu.  We  may  accept  the 
latter  term  on  the  understanding  that  we  are  to  give  the 
word  “worship”  a  wider  meaning  than  it  commonly  bears 
among  ourselves. 

1.  The  Relation  of  the  Living  to  the  Dead 

It  is  probably  correct  to  say  that  the  attitude  of  the 
Bantu  towards  the  departed  is  a  twofold  one,  founded  on 
a  sense  of  mutual  need.  In  the  close  community  between 
the  living  and  the  dead  neither  can  do  without  the  other. 
The  living  need  the  help  of  the  departed  in  battling  with 
the  evils  of  their  present  existence,  and  on  the  other  hand 
the  departed  depend  upon  the  living  for  much  of  their 
well-being.  The  dead  has  some  power  that  the  living 
man  does  not  possess,  power  proceeding  largely  from  the 
fact  that  it  lives  invisible, — seen  at  any  rate  only  on  rare 
occasions, — and  independent  of  the  laws  of  space  and  time. 
Things  hidden  to  the  mortal  eye  are  no  secret  to  the  de¬ 
parted.  Moreover,  they  can  bring  things  to  pass.  If  the 
trees  bear  a  plentiful  crop  of  fruit,  if  the  fields  give  a  good 
harvest,  if  sterility  falls  upon  the  herds  and  disease  and 
calamity  upon  the  community,  it  may  be  the  departed 
that  deserve  the  credit  or  the  blame.  They  have  the 
power  to  bless  and  to  blight.  There  are  other  important 

33 


34 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


agencies  in  the  universe.  There  is  the  mysterious  energy 
working  in  all  things,  and  there  is  the  Supreme  Being 
above  all ;  but  the  unseen  spirits  of  men  and  women  too 
have  a  real  power  all  their  own.  Normally  they  are  de¬ 
voted,  or  one  may  suppose  them  to  be  devoted,  to  the  inter¬ 
ests  of  their  family,  left  harassed  and  struggling  here  be¬ 
low.  They  know  life  from  the  inside, — all  its  care  and 
pain.  They  are  not,  as  is  the  Supreme  Being,  removed 
far  from  men.  The  attitude  of  trust  would  seem,  then, 
the  proper  one  to  adopt  towards  these  unseen,  powerful, 
experienced  beings.  We  shall  go  altogether  wrong  in 
our  estimate  of  Bantu  religion,  if  we  do  not  recognize 
that  they  really  do  put  their  faith  in  these  ancestors,  now 
in  the  spirit  world.  The  old  father  and  the  wise,  power¬ 
ful  chief  were  looked  up  to  with  affection  and  trust  while 
they  were  living.  Now  that  they  have  gone  into  the  un¬ 
seen  realm  and  are  wiser  and  more  powerful  than  ever, 
they  are  regarded  with  so  much  the  more  trust.  We  may 
find  much  in  the  life  of  the  Bantu  that  alienates  our  sym¬ 
pathies;  but,  here  at  the  heart  of  it,  let  us  recognize  that 
they  worship  the  best  they  have  known. 

At  the  same  time,  in  putting  off  the  flesh,  the  departed 
have  by  no  means  divested  themselves  of  human  nature. 
The  best  of  men  are  subject  to  moods;  ordinary  people 
are  jealous,  touchy,  fickle;  one  has  to  be  on  his  guard 
not  to  offend  them;  for,  if  angered,  they  are  apt  to  be¬ 
come  vindictive.  So  it  is  with  the  departed;  you  can 
never  be  quite  sure  of  them.  Moreover,  powerful  as  they 
are,  they  suffer  from  cold  and  thirst,  if  not  from  hunger, 
and  need  the  solicitous  attention  of  their  family  remain¬ 
ing  on  earth.  Any  omission  on  its  part  to  supply  their 
needs  will  be  visited  on  the  head  of  the  offending  member, 
or  on  the  head  of  some  one  dear  to  him.  In  such  an  event 
they  must  be  placated  by  offerings.  To  some  extent  it 


CULT  OF  THE  DEAD 


35 


is  quite  true  that  fear  enters  into  their  worship  of  their 
ancestors,  the  fear  of  the  consequences  that  will  follow 
any  failure  in  their  pious  duty.  Their  real  feeling  is  a 
mingling  of  trust  and  fear ;  does  it  not  merit  the  name  of 
reverence,  that  highly  compound  emotion  which  is  a  blend 
of  wonder,  fear,  trust,  gratitude  and  subjection? 

Such  reverence  is  certainly  paid  to  the  departed  who 
are  recognized  by  the  Bantu  as  at  any  rate  potentially 
benevolent ;  hut  there  are  others  in  the  other  world  who 
are  regarded  with  unmitigated  dread.  They  are  men  and 
women  who  have  departed  against  their  will  or  who  be-^ 
came  embittered  by  the  treatment  they  received,  while* 
they  were  still  in  the  flesh.  Such  spirits  are  likely  to 
work  off  their  spleen  upon  the  living.  These  malcontent, 
malevolent  spirits  are  the  ghosts  of  people  who  were 
drowned,  or  slain  by  wild  beasts,  or  killed  by  witchcraft, 
or  who  in  passion  or  despair  committed  suicide.  Their 
funeral  rites,  perhaps,  were  not  carried  out  properly;  or 
they  were  enslaved  by  some  witch  or  warlock  and  now 
have  to  carry  out  their  master’s  behests  and  plague  the 
living;  or  they  were  men  and  women  of  a  great  age  who 
outlived  the  affections  of  their  family  and  were  neg¬ 
lected;  now,  as  indeed  they  threatened  to  do  before  they 
died,  they  haunt  their  relatives.  These  evil  spirits  are 
universally  believed  in  throughout  Bantu  Africa  and  the 
belief  robs  life  of  much  of  the  joy  that  might  otherwise 
be  experienced. 

2.  The  Four  Grades  of  Ancestral  Spirits 

With  some  exceptions  the  Bantu  have  a  common  name 
for  the  departed  who  are  held  in  reverence.  This  name, 
which  is  found  in  slightly  different  form  in  the  various 
languages,  is  Muzimo,  plural  Mizimo.  The  best  trans¬ 
lation  for  the  word  is  “divinity”  or  “divinities.”  Let  us 


36 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


think  of  these  spirits  as  graded  in  four  concentric  circles. 
The  inmost  circle  is  occupied  by  a  man’s  own  personal 
divinity,  his  tutelary  genius;  the  next  is  occupied  by  his 
family  divinities,  i.e.,  the  ghosts  of  his  father  and  mother 
and  other  near  relatives;  the  third  circle  is  occupied  by 
the  communal  divinities,  which  probably  are  the  ghosts 
of  the  family  of  the  head  of  the  village;  finally,  the  out¬ 
most  circle  is  occupied  by  the  tribal  or  national  divinity 
or  divinities,  the  ghosts  of  ancient  eminent  chiefs.  '  Each 
grade  of  divinities  has  its  own  special  constituency.  The 
tutelary  genius  has  nothing  to  do  with  any  individual 
other  than  the  one  to  whom  he  is  attached ;  the  family 
divinities  are  concerned  with  only  the  members  of  their 
own  family  circles ;  the  communal  divinities  have  only 
to  do  with  the  affairs  of  the  village  as  a  whole  and  have 
nothing  to  do  with  other  communities ;  and  the  tribal  di¬ 
vinity  has  nothing  to  do  with  individuals  or  parties,  hut 
only  with  the  common  life  of  the  tribe. 

{a)  The  Tutelary  Genius. — Dr.  Nassau,  describing  the 
Mpongwe  and  Benga  tribes  of  West  Africa,  says  that  they 
believe  in  a  life-spirit  “vaguely  spoken  of  by  some  as  a 
component  part  of  the  human  personality,  by  others  as 
separate,  but  closely  associated  from  birth  to  death.”  1 
This  is  a  man’s  genius,  his  own  private  muzimo.  How 
far  this  belief  is  common  to  the  Bantu  one  cannot  say, 
but  several  writers  have  called  attention  to  it.  The  Ba- 
ila  of  Northern  Bhodesia  certainly  share  in  the  Mpongwe 
conception  of  the  genius  as  a  component  part  of  the  hu¬ 
man  personality.  They,  like  others,  believe  that  men 
and  women  are  reborn.  A  man  named  Mungalo,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  will  tell  you  that  he  is  his  grandfather,  Mungalo, 
returned  to  life.  At  the  same  time  he  will  tell  you  that 
Mungalo  is  his  genius,  his  guardian  spirit  ( muzimo ). 

1  Nassau,  R.  H.,  Fetichism  in  West  Africa,  pp.  64  ff. 


CULT  OF  THE  DEAD 


37 


That  is  to  say,  a  man’s  tutelary  genius  is  the  reincarnated 
spirit  within  him,  the  sovereign  part  of  his  soul,  within 
him  and  yet  without  him,  surrounding  him,  guiding  him 
from  birth  to  death.  This  is  a  very  subtle  conception, 
not  without  its  own  beauty  and  value.  The  Ba-ila  address 
the  genius  as  “my  namesake.”  When  one  of  the  tribe  is 
minded  to  go  hunting,  he  rises  early  and  makes  an  of¬ 
fering  of  fine  meal  to  his  genius  and  prays  thus:  “My 
namesake,  let  us  go  to  the  hunt  together.  Bring  the 
animals  near  to  me  and  ward  off  from  me  all  danger. 
Give  me  meat  today,  oh  hunter!”  As  soon  as  he  has 
killed  an  animal,  he  cuts  morsels  from  the  liver,  the 
heart,  the  foreleg  and  the  leg  and  throws  them  north, 
south,  east  and  west,  saying  as  he  does  so:  “Thou  in  the 
west  .  .  .,  here  is  meat  for  you !”  Then  he  does  obeisance 
and  claps  his  hands,  while  uttering  his  formula  of  thanks¬ 
giving  :  “Tomorrow  and  tomorrow,  give  me  meat !” 
This  is  a  thank  offering  to  the  mizimo  in  general;  then 
he  makes  another  to  his  own  particular  genius,  saying: 
“Here  is  meat,  O  my  namesake !  Tomorrow  and  tomor¬ 
row  may  I  be  even  more  successful.  Be  thou  continually 
around  me,  oh  hunter !”  Whatever  good  fortune  a  man 
may  have,  whether  it  he  in  gaining  wealth  or  in  escaping 
from  danger,  he  ascribes  it  in  the  first  instance  to  his 
genius.  If  anything  untoward  happens  to  him,  he  makes 
an  offering  to  his  genius  and  reproaches  him  for  his  neg¬ 
lect.  If  he  meets  with  a  fatal  accident,  his  friends  can 
only  suppose  either  that  the  genius  was  vexed  and  had 
abandoned  him  to  his  fate,  or  that  some  more  powerful 
agency  had  worsted  the  genius. 

( b )  The  Family  Divinities. — It  should  be  noticed  that  a 
distinction  is  generally  made  between  the  divinities  per¬ 
taining  to  the  father  and  those  relating  to  the  mother.  In 
some  tribes  the  latter  are  given  higher  regard  than  the 


38 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


former.  In  a  totemistic  stage  of  society  the  father  and 
mother  belong,  of  course,  to  different  totem  clans,  and  re¬ 
tain  their  obligations  to  their  respective  clans.  The  ob¬ 
ligations  of  clanship  are  carried  to  such  an  extreme  that 
it  would  be  an  offence  for  the  husband  to  pray  to  his 
wife’s  family  divinities,  or  for  her  to  pray  to  his.  More 
curious  still,  it  would  be  an  offence  on  the  part  of  the 
mother’s  divinities  were  they  to  cause  the  children  to  be 
sick.  The  children  belong  to  the  father;  the  mother’s 
divinities,  while  they  may  assist  the  father’s  in  guarding 
the  children,  have  no  right  to  sicken  them.  It  is  within 
their  right  to  make  the  wife  ill,  as  the  father’s  divinities 
have  the  right  to  make  him  and  his  children  ill ;  but  they 
must  not  trespass  on  each  other’s  prerogatives. 

(c)  The  Communal  and  Tribal  Divinities. — The  com¬ 
munal  divinities,  as  we  have  noted  already,  belong  to  the 
family  of  the  chief  or  headman  of  the  village.  Where, 
as  does  not  happen  everywhere  in  Africa,  there  is  tribal 
or  national  unity  and  a  permanent  chief  or  king,  the  an¬ 
cestors  of  the  king  rise  to  the  dignity  of  tribal  or  national 
gods.  Both  these  kinds  of  divinity  have  to  deal,  not  so 
much  with  the  affairs  of  individuals,  as  with  those  of  the 
whole  community.  They  will  be  consulted  in  case  of  an 
epidemic,  a  drought,  or  other  public  calamity.  Their  aid 
is  invoked  on  behalf  of  the  crops  and  the  cattle.  Natu¬ 
rally  they  are  called  upon  in  time  of  war.  We  shall  have 
something  more  to  say  presently  about  the  tribal  divinities. 

3.  Communion  with  the  Divinities 

If  ever  there  was  a  people  conscious  that  they  are  sur¬ 
rounded  by  a  great  cloud  of  witnesses  it  is  the  Bantu. 
They  might  say  with  Milton: 

‘  ‘  Millions  of  spiritual  creatures  walk  the  earth 
Unseen,  both  when  we  wake  and  when  we  sleep.” 


CULT  OF  THE  DEAD 


39 


In  and  around  the  village  and  in  the  huts  themselves  these 
spirits  are  continually  present.  It  is  only  rarely,  how¬ 
ever,  that  'they  appear  in  person  before  the  eyes  of  peo¬ 
ple  who  are  awake.  How  then  are  they  supposed  to  make 
their  presence  known  ? 

(a)  They  Often  Come  in  Dreams . — When  a  man  sees  in 
his  sleep  the  phantom  of  a  person  he  used  to  know,  he 
has  no  doubt  that  the  person  has  actually  visited  him.  If 
it  be  a  relative,  and  therefore  in  the  ranks  of  his  family 
divinities,  he  will  make  an  offering  to  the  spirit  when  he 
wakes.  The  departed  often  come  in  this  way  with  benev¬ 
olent  motives, — to  reveal  the  name  of  some  drug,  or  the 
composition  of  some  charm,  to  give  advice  as  to  how  to 
reply  to  a  charge  that  is  hanging  over  a  living  man’s  head, 
to  tell  where  game  will  be  found,  or  to  reveal  the  machi¬ 
nations  of  some  witch  against  members  of  the  family. 

( b )  They  Appear  in  the  Forms  of  Animals . — The 
Bantu  believe  that  the  dead  take  the  form  of  animals  such 
as  a  mantis,  a  puff-adder,  a  crocodile  or  lion.  Some  men 
and  women  are  said  to  procure  extremely  powerful  drugs 
which  enable  them,  at  death,  to  become  certain  animals. 
The  writer  was  one  day  in  the  hut  erected  over  the  grave 
of  an  influential  chief,  when  some  men  showed  him  a  tor¬ 
toise  which  they  declared  to  have  issued  from  the  grave 
and  to  be  the  chief  himself.  This  same  chief  was  said  to 
be  roaming  the  district  in  the  form  of  a  lion.  Should  peo¬ 
ple  of  that  community  come  across  a  lion  eating  his  prey 
in  the  forest,  and  should  it  leave  the  meat  and  walk  off 
at  their  approach,  they  would  be  convinced  that  they  had 
met  their  old  chief  again  and  that  he  had  killed  the  ani¬ 
mal  expressly  for  their  benefit.  If  people  notice  a  snake 
in  the  neighborhood  of  a  grave,  they  believe  it  to  be  the 
dead  person  buried  there  and  will  refrain  from  molest¬ 
ing  it.  This  is  probably  the  motive  of  the  python-worship 


40 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


found  in  Uganda,  for  example ;  the  huge  reptile  has 
a  temple  and  an  attendant  to  give  it  food,  is  regarded  as 
the  giver  of  children,  and  receives  from  its  suppliants 
offerings  of  beer  and  goats. 

(c)  They  Cause  Sickness. — Divinities  make  their  pres¬ 
ence  known  also  by  causing  sickness.  Any  disease,  but 
especially  those  in  which  delirium  occurs,  or  in  which 
there  is  great  emaciation,  may  be  regarded  as  the  act  of 
a  divinity.  It  is  his  way  of  reminding  the  living  of  his 
existence.  Recourse  is  had  in  the  first  instance  to  the 
diviner,  who,  after  consulting  his  oracle,  announces  that 
it  is  so-and-so  who  is  causing  the  sickness,  because  the 
family  has  neglected  him  lately.  Then  the  members  of 
the  family  gather,  make  their  offering  and  pray  the 
offended  divinity  to  be  appeased  and  permit  the  patient 
to  recover. 

( d )  They  Speak  through  Mediums  and  Prophets. — An¬ 
other  way  in  which  the  divinities  make  themselves  known 
is  by  means  of  mediums  and  prophets.  We  are  all  fa¬ 
miliar  in  these  days  with  the  pretensions  of  people  in 
America  and  Europe  to  hold  intercourse  with  the  dead. 
Without  presuming  to  estimate  the  truth  there  may  be 
in  their  claim,  we  may  point  out  the  fact  that  when  they 
speak  of  this  as  a  new  revelation  spiritualists  are  wrong. 
This  sort  of  thing  obtains  in  Africa  and  probably  has  ob¬ 
tained  for  thousands  of  years.  No  unsophisticated  Afri¬ 
can  would  deny  the  possibility  of  the  dead  making  their 
will  known  to  the  living  through  a  medium.  The  Bantu 
make  a  regular  practice  of  it  and  the  oracles  of  the  divini¬ 
ties  received  in  this  way  are  accepted  as  law.  The  me¬ 
dium  is  therefore  a  very  important  person.  In  Uganda 
every  temple  erected  for  the  accommodation  of  a  deity 
has  at  least  one  medium  attached  to  it,  very  often  a 
woman,  who  periodically  falls  into  a  trance  and  delivers 


CULT  OF  THE  DEAD 


41 


the  god’s  messages.  In  other  parts  of  Africa,  though  per¬ 
haps  not  in  such  an  organized  manner,  the  same  practice 
prevails.  There  are  occasional  as  well  as  professional 
mediums.  A  person  will  suddenly  he  seized  with  a  fit 
and  when  addressed  by  those  present  will  announce  the 
name  of  some  deceased  individual  and  proceed  to  deliver 
a  message  from  him.  Sometimes  in  a  mysterious  awe¬ 
inspiring  fashion  a  number  of  people  will  be  possessed 
at  once,  will  roll  about  foaming  at  the  mouth,  and,  going 
through  the  most  terrible  contortions  of  body,  will  throw 
themselves  on  the  ground,  against  rocks  and  trees  or  even 
into  the  fire,  without  feeling  pain.  In  such  cases  the 
spirits  have  to  be  exorcised.  Such  a  person  may  never 
again  be  possessed,  or  he  may  thereafter  be  from  time  to 
time  affected  by  the  spirit  and  deliver  messages.  Some¬ 
times  the  announcement  has  to  do  with  future  events,  that 
there  will  be  drought  or  famine  or  pestilence;  sometimes 
a  spirit  announces  through  the  medium  that  he  is  about 
to  be  reborn ;  another  spirit  threatens  his  heir  with  calam¬ 
ity,  if  the  children  he  left  behind  are  not  better  treated. 
Sometimes  the  message  spoken  by  the  medium  is  suf¬ 
ficient  to  condemn  a  perfectly  innocent  person  as  a  witch. 

Now  and  then  there  arises  in  a  tribe  a  man  who  gives 
himself  out  to  be  some  great  one,  some  long-departed 
hero,  or  even  the  Creator  Himself.  It  is  difficult  to  draw 
the  line  between  such  prophets  and  the  mediums  we  have 
just  spoken  of ;  but  these  prophets  do  not  always  speak 
in  a  trance ;  they  go  from  place  to  place  setting  forth  their 
claims  in  an  ordinary  voice,  but  declaring  themselves  to 
be  possessed  by,  or  to  be  speaking  in  the  name  of,  some 
divinity  or  god.  They  promise  and  threaten  the  most 
extraordinary  things.  The  writer  knew  of  one  who  an¬ 
nounced  that  he  would  destroy  a  certain  grub  that  at  the 
time  was  devastating  the  crops,  that  he  would  turn  the 


42 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


sun  black  for  six  days,  would  tear  up  the  railway  and 
drive  all  the  Europeans  from  the  country.  All  this  was 
on  the  condition  that  the  people  would  first  destroy 
their  cattle.  It  is  amazing  how  readily  the  people  give 
credence  to  these  fellows.  In  this  case  the  people  had 
actually  begun  to  kill  their  cattle,  when  the  British  Gov¬ 
ernment  put  a  stop  to  the  prophet’s  activities.  History 
tells  of  many  similar,  and  of  some  much  more  disastrous 
“prophesyings”  among  the  Bantu. 

(e)  They  Take  up  Their  Abode  in  Certain  Objects . — 
Another  way  the  divinities  make  their  presence  felt  is  by 
taking  up  their  abode  in  certain  objects  such  as  a  piece 
of  cloth,  a  basket,  a  doll,  or  a  graven  image.  This  idea 
is  closely  akin  to  fetishism.  Such  objects  are  set  aside 
as  sacred.  The  Ba-thonga  have  a  very  venerated  object 
which  consists  of  the  nails  and  hair  of  a  long  line  of  de¬ 
ceased  chiefs,  kneaded  together  with  the  dung  of  the  oxen 
that  were  killed  at  their  funerals,  and  all  bound  together 
with  thongs  of  hide.  Whenever  the  chief  of  the  tribe  dies 
his  relics  are  added  to  the  bundle.  At  present  it  is  about 
a  foot  in  length.  It  is  brought  out  and  brandished  by 
the  officiant  when  making  a  sacrifice,  and  is  regarded  as 
in  some  way  bound  up  with  the  life  of  the  whole  clan. 
M.  Junod,  who  described  it.,  did  not  indicate  whether  this 
“national  amulet”  is  considered  to  be  the  localization  of 
the  divinities  of  the  tribe,  but  that  would  appear  to  be 
its  significance.  It  reminds  us  of  the  practice  of  the  Ba- 
ganda,  who  always  remove  the  lower  jawbone  of  the  corpse 
of  the  deceased  king  in  the  belief  that  his  ghost  clings 
to  it  and  will  be  quite  satisfied  to  remain  with  it  as  long 
as  it  is  honored.  The  Ba-ganda  possess  the  jawbones  of 
kings  who  lived  a  thousand  years  ago.  A  temple  is 
erected  to  receive  the  sacred  relic.  The  spirit  of  the  de¬ 
ceased  not  only  stays  with  the  bone,  but  also  takes  posses- 


CULT  OF  THE  DEAD 


43 


sion  of  some  man  who  is  sent  to  the  temple  to  be  the 
medium  through  whom  it  is  possible  to  hold  converse  with 
the  defunct  king. 

4.  Sacred  Localities  Associated  with  the  Divinities 

As  far  as  the  writer  is  aware  the  practice  described  in 
the  last  paragraph  is  not  common  among  the  Bantu  tribes ; 
nor  are  they  widely  accustomed  to  make  graven  images 
of  the  dead.  But  they  all  have  sacred  spots  which  are 
intimately  associated  with  the  departed.  Naturally  one 
of  these  spots  is  at  the  grave.  Many  tribes  erect  minia¬ 
ture  huts  over  the  graves,  or  in  the  vicinity,  and  there 
make  their  offerings  to  the  deceased.  Others  erect  sim¬ 
ilar  “temples”  in  the  villages  and  are  careful  to  remove 
them,  whenever  the  village  is  shifted  to  a  new  site.  Some 
plant  a  ring  of  poles  around  the  grave,  poles  cut  from 
some  tree  that  readily  takes  root,  so  that  in  course  of  time 
a  grove  marks  the  spot.  The  tribal  divinities  often  have 
vast  groves  of  this  kind  associated  with  their  worship.  The 
gateway  of  the  village  and  the  doorway  of  the  hut  are 
also  sacred  places,  for  the  departed  congregate  there  and 
protect  their  people  going  in  and  coming  out.  Offerings 
to  them  are  made  at  the  threshold  and  at  the  foot  of  the 
central  supporting  pole  in  the  hut.  In  many  of  the  large 
village  enclosures  one  will  see  a  tree  or  a  pronged-pole 
that  is  also  sacred;  at  the  foot  of  them  offerings  are 
made  and  upon  their  branches  things  are  hung  to  put 
them  in  the  divinities’  keeping.  Mountain  tops  are  also 
sacred  places  in  some  parts  of  Africa. 

5.  Prayers  and  Offerings  to  the  Divinities 

Here,  then,  the  people  gather  to  perform  their  reli¬ 
gious  rites ;  the  members  of  a  family  at  the  grave  or  in  the 
hut,  the  village  community  under  the  sacred  tree  or 


44 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


around  the  grave,  the  larger  community  at  the  sacred 
grove  or  before  the  temple  erected  for  the  tribal  divinity. 
Ancestor  worship  as  it  exists  in  Africa  is  a  religion  with¬ 
out  an  organized  priesthood.  At  least  there  is  only  a 
rudimentary  priesthood  associated  with  the  public  divini¬ 
ties.  We  have  seen  how  each  man  approaches  his  own 
tutelary  genius.  Within  the  family,  the  father  or  the 
elder  son  of  the  deceased  acts  in  the  name  of  all  the  mem¬ 
bers.  Where  the  tribal  divinity  has  a  temple  or  sacred 
grove,  there  is  an  individual  who  is  placed  in  charge  of  it 
and  it  is  he  who  periodically  summons  the  people  to  wor¬ 
ship  and  leads  their  devotions. 

The  offerings  to  the  divinities  consist  of  things  which 
the  living  use  in  their  ordinary  every-day  life:  the  pro¬ 
duce  of  their  fields  and  herds  or  simple  articles  of  dress 
and  food.  Except  in  the  case  of  sacrifices  on  the  larger 
scale,  as  when  cattle  are  offered  to  the  tribal  divinities, 
the  offerings  have  little  or  no  intrinsic  value.  It  is  not, 
therefore,  a  case  of  buying  the  favor  of  the  divinities  with 
gifts  of  a  high  price,  but  rather  of  pleasing  them  by  an 
act  of  attention  and  affection.  Indeed  the  simplest  offer¬ 
ing  of  all,  and  one  which  is  the  usual  accompaniment  of 
prayers  in  some  tribes,  is  the  saliva.  We  cannot  easily 
bring  ourselves  to  understand  the  condition  of  mind  that 
sees  religious  value  in  such  an  offering;  the  idea  of  spit¬ 
ting  as  an  act  of  worship  is  repellent  to  us.  But  if  we 
think  of  the  spittle  as  what  it  is, — a  part  of  oneself, — 
then  perhaps  we  may  begin  to  realize  how  it  can  come  to 
have  sacramental  value  as  an  offering.  It  is  not  that  there 
is  any  intrinsic  worth  in  the  spittle,  or  that  it  can  conceiv¬ 
ably  be  of  any  use  to  the  divinity ;  but  simply  because  its 
value  is  nil,  it  acquires  a  real  religious  value.  It  is  some¬ 
thing  like  a  lover  offering  a  flower  to  his  beloved.  It  cre¬ 
ates  a  bond,  or  renews  the  bond,  between  the  worshipper 


CULT  OF  THE  DEAD 


45 


and  his  divinity.  And  this  gives  a  clue,  I  think,  to  the 
meaning  of  all  the  offerings.  They  are  not  bribes.  Nor 
is  the  offering  a  magical  performance.  We  are  too  apt  to 
conclude,  perhaps,  that  mere  ritual  is  regarded  as  effica¬ 
cious  in  swaying  the  will  of  the  divinities  and  gaining 
their  favor ;  we  say  that  the  acts  of  worship  must  be  per¬ 
formed  at  certain  times,  at  certain  places  and  in  certain 
prescribed  ways,  otherwise  they  would  have  no  value; 
once  carried  out  in  the  proper  manner  the  effect  is  sure 
and  certain.  No  doubt  among  the  Bantu,  as  among  peo¬ 
ples  of  higher  culture,  worship  often  degenerates  into 
formalism  of  this  character ;  but  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  to  the  more  piously-minded  of  them,  at  any  rate,  these 
acts  of  worship  have  a  real  religious  value.  They  come 
before  their  divinities  with  a  prayer  and  an  offering, 
divinities  who  are  not  mere  abstractions  of  thought,  hut 
the  spirits  of  men  and  women  who  once  lived  here  below 
and  are  still  full  of  human  nature.  These  offerings  create 
and  renew  the  bond  which  unites  them  all,  and  in  the  con¬ 
tact  the  human  soul  feels  itself  lifted  up  and  strengthened. 

Of  some  tribes  it  is  said  that  they  never  approach  the 
divinities  as  long  as  life  runs  smoothly.  But  it  j^not  true 
of  all.  When  a  Thonga  native  has  ground  tobacco  for 
snuff,  he  puts  two  spoonfuls  on  the  domestic  altar  as  a 
thank  offering,  one  for  the  paternal  and  the  other  for  the 
maternal  divinities.  Many  Bantu,  when  breaking  their 
fast  in  the  morning,  scatter  a  few  morsels  of  bread,  and, 
when  smoking  the  first  morning  pipe  blow  smoke  up  into 
the  air,  with  a  few  words,  or  with  a  silent  thought,  ad¬ 
dressed  to  their  guardian  spirit  or  to  the  domestic  divini¬ 
ties.  This  is  an  acknowledgment  of  the  spiritual  presence 
about  them. 

It  is  when  the  divinities  make  their  displeasure  felt  by 
causing  a  member  of  the  family  to  fall  ill  that  the  family 


46 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


meets  to  make  offerings.  Consultation  with  the  diviner 
has  revealed  the  identity  of  the  offended  divinity  and  now 
the  family  meets  in  the  house  and  its  head  prays  thus: 
“Tsu !  If  it  he  thou  who  art  causing  our  child’s  sickness, 
see  here  is  the  beer  that  thou  desirest  and  also  some 
tobacco;  we  pray  thee,  leave  him  alone  that  he  may  re¬ 
cover.”  With  Tsu !  he  ejects  a  little  saliva,  and  while 
praying  offers  the  beer  in  both  hands,  as  if  the  divinity 
were  standing  there  in  person. 

The  community  makes  its  offerings  at  the  seasons  of 
the  year  when  the  help  of  the  divinities  is  most  needed, 
such  as  sowing  and  reaping  time,  and  especially  when 
there  is  a  drought.  Some  tribes  have  regular  periods 
when  the  communal  or  tribal  divinities  are  worshipped. 
One  period  may  be  at  the  turn  of  the  year,  when  the 
Pleiades  appear  in  the  sky,  giving  notice  of  the  approach 
of  the  cultivating  season.  This  is  a  critical  time.  It  is 
the  beginning  of  the  new  year.  Blessing  must  be  sought 
on  field  and  herd  and  community.  Hence  the  great  fes¬ 
tival  that  so  commonly  takes  place  at  this  season.  Another 
supremely  joyous  festival  takes  place  after  the  harvest  is 
gathered  in.  It  is  a  Thanksgiving.  All  such  festivals 
have  features  in  common.  The  people  dance,  dressed  in 
all  their  barbaric  finery;  they  consume  great  quantities 
of  beer;  there  is  often  a  slackening  of  restraints  leading 
to  much  license,  though  it  is  to  he  borne  in  mind  that  the 
immorality  on  these  occasions  has  often  a  ritual  signifi¬ 
cance.  Among  the  Ba-ila  and  perhaps  among  other  tribes, 
there  is  no  sacrifice  on  such  occasions;  there  is  no  shed¬ 
ding  of  the  blood  of  oxen;  there  is  no  priestly  ritual. 
They  are  purely  democratic  festivals,  in  which  chiefs, 
freemen  and  slaves,  men  and  women  and  children,  all  take 
part  in  song  and  dance  and  feast  and  unite  in  invoking 
the  name  of  the  great  communal  muzimo ,  who  rejoices  to 


CULT  OF  THE  DEAD 


47 


see  his  people  happy  with  their  herds  and  flocks  and  will 
respond  by  sending  increase  and  plenty. 

Expiatory  sacrifices  are  offered  when  murder  within 
the  community  has  occurred,  for  the  great  muzimo  is  the 
guardian  of  the  lives  of  his  people  and  is  seriously 
offended  when  one  of  them  is  wantonly  destroyed.  The 
murderer’s  clansmen  have  to  contribute  a  number  of  cattle 
that  are  taken  by  the  murdered  man’s  clan  as  blood-money. 
They  also  have  to  bring  one  or  two  oxen  that  are  solemnly 
killed  and  offered  to  the  muzimo  on  behalf  of  the  whole 
community  as  an  expiation. 

M.  Junod,  writing  of  the  Ba-thonga,  says  that  ancestor 
worship  “has  no,  or  at  least  very  little,  connection  with 
the  moral  conduct  of  the  individual.”  1  Whether  this  is 
true  of  the  Bantu  generally  depends  to  a  great  extent  on 
what  we  mean  by  “moral  conduct.”  It  is  questionable 
whether  men  and  women  are  more  chaste,  honest  or  truth¬ 
ful  because  of  their  ancestors;  in  these  respects  the  wor¬ 
shippers  do  not  rise  superior  to  their  divinities,  who, 
whatever  else  they  have  gained  since  departing  this  life, 
have  not  made  any  real  moral  progress.  But  what  has  been 
said  above  about  the  expiatory  sacrifice  when  a  murder  has 
been  committed  goes  to  show  that,  so  far  as  some  at  least 
of  the  Bantu  are  concerned,  ancestor  worship  has  some 
ethical  implication.  To  be  sure  that  influence  is  limited : 
a  man  will  not  desist  from  homicide,  as  homicide,  out  of 
reverence  for,  or  from  fear  of,  his  communal  divinities. 
They  are  quite  indifferent  as  regards  the  lives  of  people 
who  do  not  belong  to  their  particular  community.  As  far 
as  they  are  concerned,  the  killing  of  a  stranger  is  no  mur¬ 
der  and  no  sin.  Still,  circumscribed  as  the  moral  influ¬ 
ence  may  he,  it  is  there.  While  perhaps  the  direct 
influence  over  the  individual  may  be  small,  it  is  certain 
1  Junod,  H.  A.,  The  Life  of  a  South  African  Tribe,  Vol.  II,  p.  388. 


48 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


that  ancestor  worship  has  considerable  effect  socially,  espe¬ 
cially  as  a  binding  force,  and  therefore  indirectly  it  must 
have  considerable  influence  over  the  individual,  in  ways 
difficult  to  define,  perhaps,  but  none  the  less  real. 


VII 


NATURE  SPIRITS 

So  much,  then,  for  the  ancestor  worship  of  the  Bantu. 
Now  another  question  arises :  Have  they  any  idea  of  spir¬ 
itual  beings  apart  from  the  spirits  of  men,  and  do  they  in 
any  sense  worship  them?  We  remember  what  Seneca 
said:  “If  you  come  upon  a  grove  of  old  trees  that  have 
shot  up  above  the  common  height  and  shut  out  the  sight 
of  the  sky  by  the  gloom  of  their  matted  boughs,  you  feel 
there  is  a  spirit  in  the  place,  so  lofty  is  the  wood,  so  lone 
the  spot,  so  wondrous  the  thick  unbroken  shade.”  1  Do 
the  Bantu  share  that  natural  feeling,  not  only  as  regards 
woods,  but  also  in  regard  to  rivers,  mountains,  springs, 
lakes  and  the  sea  ?  According  to  the  testimony  of  many 
writers  the  Bantu  do  believe  in  such  nature  spirits,  but 
it  is  very  difficult  to  define  them  precisely.  It  would  be 
strange  indeed  if  the  mighty  rivers  of  Africa,  the  expan¬ 
sive  lakes,  the  deep  dark  forests,  as  well  as  the  gentle 
bubbling  springs  and  the  rolling  ocean,  made  no  religious 
impression  upon  the  people  who  lived  in  their  vicinity. 
That,  in  one  way  or  another,  the  Bantu  are  deeply  im¬ 
pressed  by  these  things  nobody  can  doubt  who  knows  them. 
But  does  their  awe  arise  from,  or  induce,  a  belief  that 
these  things  are  in  themselves  animate  and  divine,  or  that 
they  are  the  dwelling  places  of  spirits  ?  And  if  the  latter, 
are  the  spirits  the  same  as,  or  are  they  different  from,  the 
1  Seneca,  Epist.  iv,  12.3. 


49 


50 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


ancestral  spirits?  Probably  all  three  varieties  of  the 
belief  exist  among  the  Bantu.  Thus  Dr.  Donald  Fraser 
says  of  the  Tambuka  that  “many  of  the  mighty  natural 
objects  were  worshipped,  such  as  conspicuous  hills,  wild 
waterfalls,  great  trees,  deep  pools.  They  were  not  rever¬ 
enced  as  the  dwelling-place  of  some  deity  or  spirits,  but 
as  themselves  animate  and  divine.  Thus  two  hills  in  the 
Rukuru  gorge  are  often  worshipped.  Passers  in  the  gorge 
declare  that  they  can  sometimes  hear  the  cocks  belonging 
to  the  hills  crow,  and  when  the  sound  of  the  tumbling 
water  echoes  between  the  mountain-sides  they  say  the  hills 
are  at  war  with  one  another,  and  they  travel  on  in  haste 
and  terror.”  1  Mr.  Roscoe,  writing  of  the  Ba-ganda, 
gives  us  another  phase  of  this  nature-worship.  “The  prin¬ 
cipal  rivers,”  he  says,  “were  thought  to  have  spirits,  which 
were  credited  with  powers  for  good  or  for  evil.”  2  In  the 
old  days  no  great  river  in  Uganda  was  bridged;  people 
who  wished  to  cross  a  stream  had  to  swim,  or  to  paddle  a 
canoe,  or  to  jump  from  tuft  to  tuft  on  the  papyrus  roots, 
in  any  case  there  being  some  danger  attached  to  the  cross¬ 
ing.  Therefore  a  traveller  would  take  a  few  coffee-ber¬ 
ries,  and,  after  asking  the  river-spirit  to  give  him  a  safe 
crossing,  he  would  throw  the  coffee-berries  into  the  water. 
If  a  man  was  carried  away  by  the  current,  his  friends  did 
not  try  to  save  him,  for  they  feared  that  the  spirit  would 
take  them  also.  The  Ba-ganda  believed  also  in  forest- 
gods,  who  had  to  be  consulted  before  any  trees  could  be 
felled,  and  who  made  hunters  bold  and  protected  them 
from  wild  animals.  Mr.  Roscoe  tells  us  that  certain  hill- 
spirits  were  the  ghosts  of  wild  animals;  he  does  not  say 
that  any  of  the  others  were  the  spirits  of  men.  When  we 
turn  to  the  Ba-thonga,  M.  Junod  speaks  of  lakes  and 

1  Fraser,  D.,  Winning  a  Primitive  People,  pp.  122,  123. 

3  Roscoe,  J.,  The  Bnganda,  p.  318. 


NATURE  SPIRITS 


51 


rivers  inhabited  by  spirits  and  says  that  the  more  you 
search  the  better  you  identify  these  lake  and  river  spirits 
with  ancestor  gods.  He  found  one  instance  of  what 
seemed  to  be  a  true  nature  spirit,  but  further  investiga¬ 
tion  proved  that  it  too  was  identified  with  an  ancestral 
spirit.  The  writer’s  own  experience  among  the  Ba-ila  was 
similar.  They  too  stand  in  awe  of  mighty  trees  and  speak 
with  bated  breath  of  some  mighty  spirit  in  them,  but  one 
always  finds  that  the  spirit  was  once  a  living  man  or 
woman.  When  a  site  was  selected  for  the  mission  station 
at  Kasenga,  an  old  chief,  whose  forebears  had  formerly 
lived  there,  came  from  some  distance  away  to  beg,  indeed 
to  warn  the  writer,  not  to  cut  down  certain  trees  and  not 
to  use  certain  anthills  as  material  for  building.  In  case 
they  were  thus  used,  he  believed  that  powerful  spirits  who 
lived  in  them  would  resent  the  interference.  These 
seemed  at  first  to  be  nature  spirits,  but  they  turned  out  to 
be  the  spirits  of  the  old  man’s  ancestors.  The  more  one 
investigates  the  spirits  believed  in  by  the  Ba-ila,  the  more 
they  resolve  themselves  into  spirits  of  human  beings.  We 
may  leave  the  question  at  this  point.  Enough  has  been 
said  to  show  that  the  Bantu  are  vividly  conscious  that  the 
world  around  them  is  not  merely  material  but  is  shot 
through  and  through  with  spirit. 


VIII 


>• 


TRIBAL  DIVINITIES  PASSING  OVER  INTO 

GODS 

-  h  f  \ 

Some  writers,  like  the  Euhemerists  of  old,  would  have 
us  believe  that  “god”  is  synonymous  with  “dead  ancestor,” 
and  that  even  the  Supreme  Being  is  no  more  nor  less  than 
a  glorified  ghost.  It  can  be  shown  that  as  far  as  the 
Bantu  is  concerned  this  is  not  true.  Let  us  be  prepared 
.  ourselves  to  reach  a  conclusion  by  ‘  considering  how  much 
there  is  of  truth  in  the  Euhemeristic  contention.  Let  it 
be  admitted:  at  once  that  many  of  the  gods  worshipped  by 
w  the  Bantu  are  the  ghosts  of  dead  men.  It  is  likewise  true 
that  there  is  in  their  belief  a  Supreme  Being  who  is  not  a 
ghost. 

s  •  If  one  asks  what  difference  there  is  between  a  divinity 
and  a  god,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  difference  is  one 
of  .degree  and  not  of  kind ;  both  classes  are  varieties  of 
the  species,  ancestral  spirit.  I  use  the  word  “god”  to 
indicate  that  variety  which  is  of  the  greater  importance, 
is  reverenced  over  a  wider  area,  and  of  which  the  human 
origin  is  quite  forgotten,  or  almost  forgotten. 

It  is  a  well  known  fact  that  many  people  imagine 
heaven  to  be  a  glorified  earth  so  that  they  organize  it  in 
imagination  after  the  manner  of  the  social  system  to 
which  they  are  accustomed.  If  they  are  used  to  a  mon¬ 
archy  on  earth,  they  naturally  think  of  a  monarchy  in  the 
spirit  world,  with  a  chief,  counsellors,  etc.  Theological 

52 


DIVINITIES  PASSING  OVER  INTO  GODS  53 


beliefs  are  largely  determined  by  the  structure  of  society 
on  earth.  The  Ba-ganda  are  the  only  Bantu,  as  far  as  the 
writer  knows,  that  have  had  an  uninterrupted  line  of 
kings  for  at  least  a  thousand  years.  It  is  only  natural 
that  they  should  have  developed  ancestor-worship  into  a 
more  elaborate  polytheism  than  can  be  found  among  other 
Bantu  tribes;  We  may  say  of  all  of  these  gods  what  Mr. 
Roscoe  says  of  one  of  them:  “The  human  element  has 
been  lost  in  the  divine,  .  .  .  the  natural  has  been  effaced 
by  the  supernatural,  until,  in  the  minds  of  the  common 
people,  only  the  supernatural  remains.”  1  These  gods  , 
need  not  be  described  minutely.  There  are  about  forty  in 
all.  Among  them  is  Mukasa,  the  god  of  plenty,  benign, 
who  never  asked  for  the  life  of  a  human  being  and  never 
had  anything  to  do  with  war;  Kibuka,  the  war-god; 
Walumbe,  the  god  of  death,  etc.  These  were  all  indisr 
putably  men  at  one  time.  And  what  is  so  highly  devel¬ 
oped  in  Uganda  we  find  on  a  limited  scale  in  other  parts  > 
of  Africa.  He  who  sets  out  to  enquire  into  Bantu  religion 
and  especially  into  their  idea  of  God,  must  fie  on  his 
guard,  lest  he  take  a  deified  ancestor  for  the  Supreme 
Being. 


1  Roscoe,  J.,  The  Baganda,  p.  291. 


f 


IX 


THE  BANTU  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  SUPREME 

BEING 

It  lias  been  said  that  “the  most  obscure  and  difficult 
question  connected  with  the  religion  of  the  Bantu  is 
whether  they  have  any  belief  in  a  Supreme  God,  a  Cre¬ 
ator,  an  overruling  Providence.”  1  It  is  the  writer’s 
strong  conviction  that  the  more  the  Bantu  are  studied,  the 
more  confidently  this  question  can  be  answered  in  the 
affirmative. 

1.  It  Plays  an  Unproductive  Part  in  Bantu  Life 

While  the  Bantu  believe  in  a  Supreme  Being,  we  must 
add  that  their  conception  is  not  a  vital,  effective  one.  It 
does  not  enter  into  their  daily  life,  as  does  the  belief  in 
charms  or  the  belief  in  the  ancestral  spirits.  This  is  one 
distinguishing  feature  between  God  and  the  divinities. 
The  divinities  have  local  habitations, — temples,  groves  or 
mountain-tops;  the  Supreme  Being  has  none.  The  divini¬ 
ties  may  have  a  priesthood,  however  rudimentary ;  the 
Supreme  Being  has  none  set  apart,  in  any  sense,  for  His 
service.  Offerings  are  made  to  the  divinities ;  rarely  if 
ever  are  any  made  to  the  Supreme  Being.  Prayers  are 
commonly  addressed  to  the  divinities;  to  the  Supreme 
Being  they  are  made  only  on  occasions  of  extreme  neces¬ 
sity.  The  people  can  understand  divinities,  who  are  like 

1  Hartland,  E.  S.,  Article  on  Bantu  and  South  Africa ,  in  Hast¬ 
ings’  Encyclopaedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics,  Vol.  II,  p.  363. 

54 


BANTU  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  SUPREME  BEING  55 


unto  themselves,  whom  they  may  have  seen  in  the  flesh, 
who  know  human  life  from  the  inside  and  are  ever  near ; 
the  Supreme  Being  no  man  hath  ever  seen ;  He  is  remote, 
inscrutable.  The  divinities  have  to  do  with  individuals, 
communities,  tribes;  the  Supreme  Being  is  Creator  and 
Lord  of  all ;  His  sphere  is  cosmical ;  He  controls  the 
great  forces  of  nature  and  but  rarely  has  to  do  with  indi¬ 
viduals  and  communities.  In  all  these  respects  there  is, 
in  the  mind  of  the  Bantu,  a  great  and  striking  difference 
between  the  ancestral  divinities  and  the  Supreme  Being. 
The  latter  is  away  on  the  fringe  of  their  consciousness; 
the  former  occupy  the  center  of  attention. 

We  may,  in  this  respect,  even  compare  the  native  mind 
to  a  palimpsest,  a  manuscript  which  has  been  over-writ¬ 
ten  again  and  again  so  that  the  original  writing  is  de¬ 
ciphered  only  with  great  difficulty.  It  is  the  writer’s 
conviction,  in  which  many  experienced  students  of  the 
Bantu  agree,  that  in  former  times  they  had  a  clearer  idea 
of  God  and  that  it  has  been  obscured  by  an  overgrowth  of 
dynamism,  fetishism  and  ancestor-worship.  This  is  some¬ 
what  analogous  to  what  we  find  in  certain  countries  nearer 
home,  where  the  saints,  who  were  and  still  are  regarded 
officially  as  mediators,  have  attained  such  a  position  as 
almost  to  take  the  place  of  the  Heavenly  Father  in  the 
minds  of  the  ignorant  populace. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact,  vouched  for  by  many  missiona¬ 
ries,  that  when  one  goes  to  pagan  Bantu  one  does  not  have 
to  prove  the  existence  of  God.  They  easily  accept  the 
idea  of  the  God  of  Christianity.  As  M.  Junod  says: 
“They  have  almost  no  difficulty  in  believing  that  this  is 
the  real  God  to  be  worshipped.  ...  It  seems  as  if  one 
were  telling  them  an  old  story,  with  which  they  had  been 
quite  familiar  but  had  now  half  forgotten.”  1 

1  Junod,  H.  A.,  The  Life  of  a  South  African  Tribe ,  Vol.  II,  p.  410. 


56 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


How  far  it  has  been  forgotten  may  be  seen  in  the  case 
of  some  South  African  tribes.  The  word  now  in  use  for 
“God”  among  the  Ba-suto  is  Molimo ,  which  is  really 
the  same,  and  used  to  mean  the  same,  as  muzimo,  the  com¬ 
mon  designation  of  the  ancestral  spirit.  The  early  mis¬ 
sionaries,  since  they  could  find  no  other  term,  used 
Molimo  as  a  translation  of  “God”  and  of  course  the 
natives  have  come  to  give  it  the  Christian  sense,  but  orig¬ 
inally  it  simply  meant  “ghost.”  The  word  for  God  in  the 
Zulu  language  today  is  UrTixo  but  it  is  a  borrowed  name ; 
they  seem  to  have  had  none  of  their  own  in  use,  when  the 
missionaries  first  came  among  them.  But  the  traditions 
of  these  tribes  show  that  formerly  both  the  Zulus  and  the 
Ba-suto  had  some  conception  of  a  powerful  and  beneficent 
Being  distinct  from  the  spirits  of  their  ancestors.  Dr. 
Callaway  tells  us  that  the  Zulus  spoke  of  the  Lord  of 
Heaven.  An  old  Musuto,  horn  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  told  a  missionary  of  an  adventure  he  had  with 
lions  which  ended  in  finding  himself  at  the  foot  of  a  steep 
precipice  with  a  broken  leg  and  with  the  prospect  either 
of  dying  of  starvation  or  being  devoured  by  wild  beasts. 
In  his  extremity  he  prayed  this  prayer :  “Oh,  new  gods, 
pray  for  me  to  the  God  of  old  that  He  may  help  me.” 
Among  the  central  tribes,  the  name  of  God  is  not  for¬ 
gotten  and  we  shall  now  relate  what  they  say  about  Him, 
although  their  idea  at  the  best  remains  somewhat  otiose 
and  unproductive. 

2.  The  Three  Most  Common  Names  for  God  and  Their 
Meanings 

One  should  not  he  surprised  to  find  that  the  idea  of  God 
is  hazy  among  the  untutored  Bantu.  Most  men,  most  civ¬ 
ilized  men,  have  vague  ideas  of  Him.  It  is  said  of  a  very 
good  and  very  candid  American  deacon  that,  in  answer  to 


BANTU  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  SUPREME  BEING  57 


his  pastor’s  question  at  a  prayeruneeting,  he  defined  his 
idea  of  God  as  “a  kind  of  oblong  blur.”  What,  then,  is  to 
be  expected  of  pagan  Bantu  ? 

Sir  H.  H.  Johnston  in  his  monumental  Comparative 
Grammar  of  the  Bantu  Languages”  has  collected  vocab¬ 
ularies  of  three  hundred  and  sixty-six  Bantu  and  eighty- 
seven  semi-Bantu  languages  and  dialects.  It  is  interest¬ 
ing  to  observe  that  in  almost  all  these  there  is  given  an 
equivalent  for  Cod.”  But  of  course  it  is  not  sufficient 
for  them  to  have  the  names ;  we  want  to  know  what  they 
mean  to  them.  It  is  possible  that  some  of  them  are  the 
names  of  departed  ancestors,  who  have  been  elevated  into 
gods.  In  the  absence  of  detailed  and  trustworthy  infor¬ 
mation  it  is  impossible  to  say.  Some  of  the  names  are  in 
use  by  single  tribes ;  some  are  known  and  used  over  large 
areas.  Preeminent  among  the  latter  are  three  names 
which  together  cover  the  usage  in  a  large  part  of  Central 
Africa.  In  about  fifty  languages  and  dialects  there  are 
variants  of  the  name  Mulungu ;  in  about  forty  more  there 
there  are  variants  of  the  name  Nyambe;  and  in  about 
fifteen  widely  spread  languages  we  find  the  name  Leza  in 
slightly  different  forms.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that 
Mulungu  is  confined  to  the  tribes  in  the  east,  as  Nyambe 
is  confined  to  those  in  the  west,  while  Leza  is  in  use  by 
tribes  in  the  central  parts.  These  three  names  for  God 
have  been  carefully  studied.  While  probably  of  none  of 
them  have  we  yet  an  exhaustive  account,  enough  has  been 
written  to  enable  us  to  understand  what  they  mean  to  the 
people  using  them.  Moreover,  we  find  that  the  ideas 
behind  these  names  are  very  much  alike,  so  that  it  is  pos¬ 
sible  to  form  some  conception  of  what  the  Bantu  mean 
by  “God.” 

An  important  aid  in  this  investigation  is  the  fact  that 
besides  the  names  above  mentioned,  most  of  these  tribes 


58 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


have  secondary  or  additional  titles  for  the  Supreme 
Being.  Dr.  Farnell  says :  “The  epithets  whereby  a 
Greek  divinity  was  addressed  in  prayer  and  in  official 
hymns  give  the  best  clue  to  the  ideas  of  ancient  worship.” 
When,  for  example,  we  are  told  that  the  Greeks  addressed 
Zeus  with  such  titles  as  “cloud-wrapped,”  “delighting  in 
thunder,”  we  know  some  at  least  of  the  ideas  held  in 
regard  to  him.  There  is  a  widespread  custom  among  the 
Bantu  of  giving  such  titles  to  animals  and  men  as  well  as 
to  God.  When  a  man,  for  example,  sees  a  dove  spreading 
its  wings  in  a  certain  way,  he  greets  it  with  this  saluta¬ 
tion  :  Chinakatuetue ,  chisangila-ku-balombe-ku-bashimbi- 
ndukubankuba  nsangila ,  which  means,  “Oh  Chinaka-tue- 
tue,  giver-of-happiness-to-men-to-girls-not-so-much,  make 
me  happy.”  Invocations  of  the  Supreme  Being  often  take 
much  the  same  form  as  this;  and  just  as  this  many- 
hyphened  phrase  gives  us  one  of  the  Bantu  notions  in 
regard  to  the  dove,  that  is,  tl\at  it  gives  happiness,  so  do 
the  epithets  addressed  to  God  contain  a  suggestion  of  the 
theology  of  the  Bantu. 

We  may  now  briefly  sum  up  what  we  can  learn  from 
an  examination  of  the  three  names  mentioned  above. 

( a )  God  is  Intimately  Associated  with  the  Sky  and 
What  Comes  from  It. — When  we  civilized  people  say  “it 
r&ins’^  or  “it  blows,”  our  learned  grammarians  call  the 
word  “it”  a  prop-word  and  tell  us  that  it  remains  in  such 
sentences  as  evidence  of  an  ancient  belief  that  the  sky-god 
fell  in  the  form  of  rain,  and  so  on.  In  place  of  our  word 
“it”  the  Ba-ila.  say  “Leza,”  that  is,  God.  Thus  for  “it 
blows”  they  say  “Leza  blows” ;  for  “it  rains”  they  say 
“Leza  falls.”  Especially  in  those  parts  of  Africa  where 
rain  is  scarce  and  where  the  people  depend  entirely  upon 
it  for  watering  their  crops,  the  rain  is  intimately  associ¬ 
ated  with  the  Supreme  Being ;  indeed  some  give  the  same 
\  ‘ 


BANTU  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  SUPREME  BEING  59 


i 


name  “Leza”  to  both.  And,  as  we  should  expect,  it  is 
particularly  in  times  of  drought  that  the  people  seek  after 
God.  They  meet  in  great  assemblies  and  call  upon  Him. 
“Come  to  us,”  cry  the  Ba-ila?  “come  to  us  a  continued 
rain ;  Oh  Leza,  fall.”  And  as  is  the  rain,  so  are  thunder 
and  lightning  regarded  as  manifestations  of  the  Supreme  - 
Being.  The  rainbow  is  commonly  spoken  of  as  “God’s 
bow.” 

( b )  God  is  the  Creator. — However  they  may  name 
Him, — Nyambe,  Leza ,  Mulungu, — the  Bantu  regard  the 
Supreme  Being  as  the  Creator  of  all  things.  Such  titles 
as  these  are  given  to  Him:  “The  Moulder,”  “The  Great 
Constructor,”  “The  First  to  do  Things,”  “The  Almighty.”  ' 

( c )  God  is  the  Determiner  of  Destiny. — The  writer  re¬ 
members  an  old  pagan  saying  to  him :  “Life  is  like  a  labor- 
ticket  that  the  white  men  give  to  their  workmen;  before 
your  time  is  up,  you  cannot  leave,  but  as  soon  as  it  ex-  . 
pires,  you  get  your  money  and  have  to  go.”  His  idea  » 
was  that  the  term  of  our  life,  our  destiny,  is  fixed  by  the 
Supreme  Being  and  there  is  no  escape  from  it.  When  a 
person  dies  a  natural  death  the  Ba-ila,  with  no  irrever¬ 
ence,  often  say:  “God  has  snapped  off  his  pumpkin,” 
meaning  that  He  takes  a  life  when  the  time  arrives. ; .  The 
same  people  have  a  proverb:  “When  you  are  happiest 
God  sees  you,”  not  to  share  in  your  happiness,  but  to  cut 
you  off  with  a  swift  disaster.  Often  they  will  say  of  an  ■„ 
unfortunate  person:  “God  has  looked  upon  him.”  Nh t- - ' 
ural  death,  as  we  should  call  it,  is  named  by  many -of  ,'ihe 

Bantu,  “A  death  that  comes  from  God.”  Whatever  in  life- 
'  t  > 
is  most  inexplicable,  that  cannot  be  put  down  to  the  agency 

of  witchcraft,  talismans,  divinities,  is  ascribed  to  Him. 

( d )  Yet  There  is  Some  Idea  of  God  as  Benevolent.— 
Though  death  is  thus  often  associated  with  God,  it  is  per¬ 
haps  significant  that  the  Bantu  have  made  some  attempt 


60 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


to  absolve  God  from  the  responsibility  of  death,  as  if  they 
felt  that  it  was  not  compatible  with  His  benevolence. 
There  is  a  well  known  Bantu  myth  which  represents  God 
in  the  beginning  of  things  as  sending  the  chameleon  to 
tell  men  that  they  should  live  forever.  Through  the  cha¬ 
meleon’s  dilatoriness  the  message  came  too  late,  and  to  this 
day  the  people  hate  that  innocent  creature  for  having 
caused  death  to  pass  upon  all  men.  Another  myth  ascribes 
the  first  death  to  the  inhumanity  of  man.  It  would  seem 
that  the  Bantu  thought  that  death  was  not  in  the  original 
constitution  of  things,  and  that  they  are  loth  to  ascribe 
its  coming  to  the  Supreme  Being.  And  the  fact  that  the 
rain  falls  on  the  evil  and  the  good,  the  just  and  the  un¬ 
just,  and  falls,  in  greater  or  less  amount  with  regularity, 
year  by  year,  is  evidence  to  their  minds  that  the  Supreme 
Being  wishes  men  well ;  so  they  name  Him  “Nourisher,” 
“The  Bountiful  Giver,”  “Guardian  of  Men.” 

(e)  Morality  is  Ascribed  to  God. — That  God  should 
take  note  of  all  doings  of  individual  men  and  should 
reward  and  punish  them  according  to  their  deeds  is  an 
idea  quite  remote  from  the  Bantu  mind.  Yet  in  some 
faint  way  they  have  a  notion  that  He  makes  for  right¬ 
eousness.  They  commonly  name  Him  in  oaths,  and  a  fre¬ 
quent  curse  on  their  lips  is,  “May  God  smite  you.”  Cer¬ 
tain  tribes  assign  the  origin  of  some  of  their  customs  to 
Him;  others,  when  they  see  a  halo  around  the  sun  or 
moon,  say  there  is  a  judgment  above.  The  expiatory  sac¬ 
rifice  offered  to  the  communal  divinity  after  a  murder  has 
already  been  described.  Moreover  it  is  quite  certain  that 
the  Ba-ila  think  that  the  divinity  conveyed  the  sacrifice 
to  Leza,  the  Supreme  Being,  for  he  was  responsible  to 
Him  for  the  lives  of  his  people. 

(/)  God  is  a  Person. — “Leza”  and  “Nyambe”  are  per¬ 
sonal  names;  they  are  each  spoken  of  as  “he”  not  “it.” 


BANTU  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  SUPREME  BEING  61 


But  “Mulungu”  is  not  a  personal  name;  it  is  the  name  of 
a  class.  Many  people  include  under  the  term  not  the 
Deity  only  but  also  all  that  pertains  to  the  spirit  world. 
Indeed  many  of  those  that  use  the  names  “Leza”  and 
“Nyambe”  and  speak  of  God  as  “He”  are  not  quite  cer¬ 
tain  that  He  is  not  the  natural  phenomena  of  rain,  thun¬ 
der  and  the  like,  or  that  He  is  not  at  most  the  animating 
spirit  within  those  phenomena.  We  have  seen  that  the 
Bantu  believe  the  world  to  be  permeated  by  hidden  mys¬ 
terious  energies,  and  it  would  seem  that  many  of  them  do 
not  already  distinguish  God  from  these;  to  them  God  is 
the  power  that  works  in  and  from  the  sky.  The  other 
facts  already  mentioned,  especially  some  of  the  praise- 
titles  ascribed  to  God,  show  that  God  is  by  many  of  the 
Bantu  regarded  as  a  Person. 

3.  Their  Groping  after  God 

It  would  be  an  exaggeration  to  represent  the  Bantu  as 
conscious  seekers  after  God.  It  is  but  rarely  that  they 
offer  prayers  and  sacrifices  to  Him;  He  is  to  almost  all 
an  “absentee  God.”  Yet  their  attitude  towards  Him  is 
reverential  and  they  have  tried  to  reconcile  the  hard  facts 
of  life  with  a  conviction  of  His  benevolence. 

That  some  have  been  impelled  by  the  enigmas  of  life 
to  seek  God — and  have  sought  Him  in  vain— would  seem 
to  be  the  meaning  of  a  legend  narrated  by  the  Ba-ila.  It 
tells  of  a  very  old  woman  who,  perplexed  by  the  riddle  of 
this  painful  earth  set  out  to  find  God  and  to  demand  from 
him  an  explanation.  God,  they  say,  had  beset  her  before 
and  behind  and  had  laid  His  hand  upon  her,  taking  from 
her  all  that  she  had,  to  the  last  of  her  children’s  children. 
Then  into  her  heart  came  this  desperate  resolution ;  some¬ 
where  up  there  in  the  sky  must  be  God’s  dwelling,  if  only 
she  could  reach  it.  She  began  to  rear  a  tower  to  reach  to 


62 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


heaven,  but  again  and  again  it  fell.  She  had  to  surrender 
in  despair  any  hope  of  reaching  God  in  that  way,  but 
somewhere  there  must  he  another  road  to  Him!  She  had 
noticed  that  on  the  far  horizon  earth  and  sky  seemed  to 
touch.  Surely,  if  she  could  get  there,  she  could  be  able 
to  find  God  at  last.  So  she  set  out  on  her  long  journey 
and  as  she  went  through  many  lands  the  people  asked 
her :  “Where  are  you  going  all  alone,  old  woman  V 9  And 
she  replied :  “I  am  seeking  God.” — “Seeking  God  !  What 
for?” — “I  want  to  ask,  ‘Why?’  Tell  me,  did  ever  any 
one  suffer  as  I  have  suffered  ?” — “Suffer  ?  How  have  you 
suffered  ?” — “I  am  alone.  He  has  taken  all  whom  I  ever 
loved,  all  that  ever  loved  me.  I  want  to  ask  Him, 
‘Why  V  ”  And  they  said  to  .her :  “Old  woman,  in  what 
do  you  differ  from  others  ?  God  afflicts  us  all  in  the  same 
way.  He  besets  us,  we  cannot  shake  Him  off.”  TKe  old 
woman  never  found  God ;  and  from  her  day  to  this  no¬ 
body  has  ever  had  an  answer  to  her  question.  So  say  the 
Ba-ila,  and  in  this  legened  one  seems  to  hear  the  ques¬ 
tionings  of  all  the  millions  of  the  Bantu.  What  answer  is 
there  but  Christ? 

4.  Origin  and  Value  of  the  Idea 

Various  attempts  have  been  made  to  explain  the  origin 
of  the  idea  of  God  found  in  elementary  religions.  Some 
have  considered  it  so  incongruous  with  other  beliefs  and 
with  the  state  of  society  among  the  people  where  it  is 
found  that  it  must  be  an  importation  from  abroad.  Some 
have  conjectured  that  the  idea  has  birth  in  the  mind  of 
the  missionary,  who  now  reads  into  the  beliefs  of  the  peo¬ 
ple  what  he  first  suggested  to  them.  This  may  be  dis¬ 
missed  at  once.  Both  the  names  for  God  and  the  ideas 
about  Him  are  found  where  no  missionary  has  ever 
taught.  It  used  to  be  said  that  the  Supreme  Being  was 


BANTU  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  SUPREME  BEING  63 


only  the  dead  hero  elevated  to  the  highest  power.  This 
cannot  nowadays  be  entertained.  More  recently  it  has 
been  suggested  that  the  idea  of  God  in  elementary  reli¬ 
gions  arises  by  a  personification  of  Mana, — the  name  that 
is  given  by  the  Pacific  Islanders  to  that  mysterious  energy 
of  which  we  have  spoken.  There  may  be  some  truth  in 
this  suggestion.  Undoubtedly  the  aspect  under  which 
God  most  appeals  to  the  Bantu  is  His  power.  We  can 
easily  imagine  a  stage  at  which  primitive  people  thought 
of  this  immanent  energy  working  in  all  things  without 
ascribing  it  to  any  personality.  The  same  entity  that 
gave  efficacy  to  a  drug  and  to  a  charm,  that  enabled  men 
to  walk  and  talk  and  perform  all  their  functions,  was  con¬ 
ceived  as  working  also  in  the  heavens,  gathering  the 
clouds,  flashing  in  the  lightning,  rolling  in  the  thunder, 
soughing  in  the  wind  and  falling  in  the  rain.  The  un¬ 
tutored  savage  would  agree  with  Herbert  Spencer  that 
“amidst  all  the  mystery  of  our  inscrutable  existence  there 
remains  the  one  absolute  certainty  that  we  are  in  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  an  infinite  and  eternal  energy  from  which  all 
things  proceed.”  But  just  as  he  has  advanced  from  the 
idea  of  a  vital  principle  in  his  body  to  the  conception  of 
a  personality  that  is  independent  of  the  body,  so  in  the 
highest  phase  of  his  belief  has  he  advanced  to  the  con¬ 
cept  of  a  Personal  Being  distinct  from  the  cosmical 
energies. 

One  might  conjecture,  but  could  not  prove,  that  the  an¬ 
cestors  of  the  Bantu  were  in  touch  perhaps  with  some 
monotheistic  people,  Semitic  or  other,  and  that  this  con¬ 
tact  was  sufficient  to  crystallize  their  ideas  on  the  subject. 

For  us  Christian  people  no  theory  of  the  origin  of  the 
Bantu  conception  of  God  can  be  complete  that  does  not 
include  the  guiding  Spirit  of  God  who  wills  to  be  known 
of  His  children.  He  who  believes  in  that  Spirit  will  look 


64 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


upon  dynamism  as  the  pathway  along  which  men  have 
been  led  towards  God. 

To  the  missionary  the  value  of  the  idea  can  hardly  he 
over-estimated.  He  has  not  to  begin  his  work  by  proving 
the  existence  of  God.  He  will  find  among  these  pagans 
those  who  are  as  sure  of  God’s  existence  as  he  himself  is. 
How  very  much  more  difficult  would  his  work  be,  were  it 
otherwise  and  he  had  to  demonstrate  God’s  existence,  in¬ 
culcate  reverence,  and  give  the  first  elementary  lesson  in 
prayer  to  an  unseen  being!  The  foundation  of  his  work 
is  already  laid.  Yet  what  we  have  said  is  sufficient  to 
show  that  all  is  not  done  that  calls  for  doing.  It  matters 
much  that  men  should  believe  in  God’s  existence;  what 
kind  of  a  God  they  believe  in  matters  much  more.  One 
finds  agnostics  among  the  Bantu.  Men  who  have  never 
heard  of  the  Synthetic  Philosophy,  who  could  not  define 
their  terms,  would  say  in  their  own  fashion,  with  Spencer, 
that  the  actuality  lying  behind  all  appearance  is  unknow¬ 
able.  One  finds  others,  too,  who  cherish  the  thought  of 
God’s  remoteness,  because  it  is  the  more  comfortable  belief 
for  themselves ;  a  God  near  at  hand,  they  feel,  would  not 
tolerate  their  evil  ways.  To  the  great  mass  of  people, 
God  is  there,  hut  He  is  veiled  amid  the  silences.  It  is  for 
the  missionary  to  make  God  present  and  alive  and  real  to 
them  by  introducing  them  to  Him  who  is  the  Way  to  the 
Father  and  by  making  the  life  and  love  of  Christ  mean¬ 
ingful  and  credible  by  demonstrating  it  through  his  own 
daily  life  and  conduct. 


X 


THE  CHRISTIAN  APPROACH  TO  THE  BANTU 

In  what  precedes  there  has  been  an  attempt  to  make  an 
impartial  examination  of  Bantu  religion  in  all  its  aspects, 
good  and  bad.  It  now  remains  to  estimate  its  perma¬ 
nence  and  to  relate  it  to  Christianity  and  the  Christian 
approach. 

1.  Aspects  of  Bantu  Religious  Life 

(a)  It  is  Real. — The  Bantu  have  a  genuine  religion 
and  are  eminently  religious.  In  the  great  controversy 
between  the  spiritual  and  the  material,  between  religion 
and  non-religion,  they  are  on  the  side  of  the  angels.  This 
is  a  great  preliminary  asset.  There  is  a  sub-stratum  of 
truth  in  their  religious  conceptions.  There  is  such  a 
thing  as  all-immanent  energy ;  there  is  a  spirit  in  man 
that  survives  the  dissolution  of  the  body ;  there  is  a  God 
distinct  from  the  powers  of  Nature ;  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  retribution.  They  have  gone  wrong,  tragically  wrong, 
in  many  of  their  inferences,  as  when,  basing  their  prac¬ 
tices  upon  the  principles  of  dynamism,  they  seek  out  and 
cruelly  put  witches  and  wizards  to  death,  and  when  they 
carry  their  animistic  beliefs  to  the  logical  extreme  in  mas¬ 
sacring  women  and  slaves  to  give  the  deceased  a  retinue ; 
but  they  are  right  fundamentally  in  many  things.  Many 
of  their  social  customs  and  institutions  have  religious 
sanctions;  some  of  the  worst,  other  than  those  just 
referred  to,  are  grounded  in  religious  convictions. 

65 


66 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


( b )  Yet  It  is  a  Religion  of  Fear. — Their  religion  places 
the  Bantu  in  continual  bondage  to  fear.  This  is  not  true 
in  every  respect,  but  it  is  true  on  the  whole.  They  fear 
evil  spirits.  They  fear  magical  powers  wrought  by 
witches  and  wizards.  They  are  in  bondage  to  irrational 
tabus.  Nobody  can  live  among  them  without  realizing 
this  aspect  of  their  life.  Stewart  of  Lovedale  wrote  out 
of  the  fullness  of  his  knowledge:  “The  poorness  and  hard¬ 
ness,  narrowness  and  joylessness  of  human  existence  in 
paganism,  in  Central  Africa  at  least,  must  be  seen  to  be 
understood.”  It  is  true.  But  above  all,  what  strikes  one 
about  them  is  their  shrinking,  suspicious,  apprehensive 
attitude  to  life,  and  this  is  the  legitimate  fruit  of  their 
religious  belief.  The  religion  of  love,  when  accepted, 
brings  a  sense  of  great  deliverance.  Christianity  is  free¬ 
dom  from  the  fear  that  hath  torment. 

(c)  It  is  Doomed  to  Pass  Away. — The  actual  Bantu 
religion  cannot  survive  contact  with  civilization.  Year 
by  year  the  waves  of  European  civilization  are  sweeping 
in  irresistibly  upon  the  Bantu.  They  are  being  rudely 
shaken  out  of  the  torpor  of  centuries.  But  yesterday,  it 
seems,  they  were  living  in  a  secluded  world  of  their  own, 
living  as  their  forefathers  had  lived  for  centuries,  with 
the  very  dimmest  notions  of  any  more  spacious  universe. 
Now  the  energetic  white  man  has  burst  in  upon  them, 
with  his  railways,  his  motor-cars,  his  flying  machines,  his 
passion  for  precious  metals,  his  hunger  for  land,  his  need 
for  trade.  No  wonder  they  feel  harried  and  perplexed. 
The  change  is  too  rapid.  They  are  being  educated,  not 
only  by  missions,  but  also  to  some  extent  in  government 
schools  and,  above  all,  by  contact  with  white  men  on  rail¬ 
ways,  plantations  and  mines.  A  profound  change  is 
everywhere  taking  place  in  their  social  life.  Until  re¬ 
cently,  they  knew  no  external  authority  but  that  of  their 


CHRISTIAN  APPROACH  TO  THE  BANTU  67 


own  chiefs.  Now  their  country  is  parcelled  out  among 
alien  European  nations,  who  have  sent  white  magistrates 
to  govern  them.  The  most  enlightened  governments  every¬ 
where  seek  to  rule  through  the  old-established  chiefdoms 
and  thus  to  maintain  the  tribal  society,  but  however  gen¬ 
uinely  they  may  be  anxious  to  maintain  and  strengthen 
the  authority  of  these  chiefs,  inevitably  the  presence  of  a 
white  magistrate  undermines  their  position.  Their  people 
can  now  appeal  to  the  magistrate  against  their  decisions. 
They  can  be  removed  from  office.  They  are  deprived  of 
the  power  of  life  and  death  which,  in  consultation  with 
their  counsellors,  they  once  enjoyed.  We  are  not  com¬ 
plaining  of  this  state  of  affairs ;  it  is  inevitable  and  re¬ 
sults  in  the  abolition  of  much  cruel  despotism.  Life  is 
now  in  many  respects  securer  than  ever  it  was  before. 
But  what  it  means  is  that  the  tribal  life  tends  to  break  up 
under  the  impact  of  alien  civilization  and  with  the  tribal 
life  evaporate  many  of  the  restraints  to  which  they  have 
hitherto  been  subject.  Much  of  their  religion  is  quite 
incongruous  with  the  changed  conditions,  for  it  is  inti¬ 
mately  linked  up  with  the  tribal  system  and  can  hardly 
survive  it.  At  its  best  it  was  a  tribal  religion.  It  was 
closely  attached  to  the  soil,  the  hallowed  soil  where  their 
ancestors  were  buried.  They  gathered  there  around  the 
sacred  grove  in  the  presence  of  the  ancestral  divinity,  who 
was  the  strongest  of  their  tribal  bonds.  He  kept  them 
together  in  a  common  allegiance  to  him.  However  inade¬ 
quate  in  our  judgment  the  moral  implications  of  that  alle¬ 
giance  may  be,  it  is  the  strongest  of  their  ties.  Cut  away 
belief  in  the  ancestral  spirits  and  the  tribe  becomes  a  mere 
conglomeration  of  individuals  without  responsibility  the 
one  towards  another.  The  chief  himself,  whether  elected 
to  his  office  or  whether  he  inherits  of  right,  depends  for 
his  authority  in  the  last  resort  upon  religious  sanctions. 


68 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


He  wields  his  power,  not  through  any  police  force,  not 
because  of  his  wealth,  but  simply  through  his  personality. 
His  power  rests  upon  public  opinion,  and  in  the  eyes  of 
his  public  he  is  a  sacrosanct  person,  deriving  his  wisdom, 
his  personality,  his  authority,  from  occult  powers.  De¬ 
stroy  belief  in  occult  powers,  all  that  we  mean  by  dynam¬ 
ism,  and  the  chief  becomes  a  nullity,  a  mere  puppet 
obeying  the  directions  of  an  alien  hand.  So  with  the  tri¬ 
bal  morality.  As  we  have  seen  already,  it  is  very  largely 
based  upon  tabu,  which  rests  upon  a  dynamistic  basis. 
Education  and  a  wider  experience  of  the  world  will  dis¬ 
integrate  many  of  the  present  customs  and  show  the  Bantu 
that  much  of  their  tribal  morality  is  founded  upon  wrong 
suppositions.  They  will  learn  that  a  curse  means  noth¬ 
ing,  that  science  gives  no  sanction  to  what  they  have 
believed  to  be  the  inevitable  connection  between  certain 
acts  and  certain  consequences.  They  will  see  that  after 
all  these  are  but  imagination  beliefs.  As  we  have  seen, 
murder  within  a  clan  was  not,  among  many  tribes  at  least, 
punished  by  the  chief ;  it  was  the  restraint  exercised  by 
a  dynamistic  belief  that  kept  men,  under  provocation, 
from  slaying  aged  members  of  their  family;  they  feared 
the  curse  which  like  dreaded  Furies  they  were  sure  would 
dog  their  steps  till  they  were  overtaken.  Persuade  them 
that  this  restraint  is  only  a  figment  of  the  imagination 
and  that  only  the  gallows  awaits  the  murderer  and  a 
weaker  sanction  is  substituted  for  a  stronger;  the  mur¬ 
derer  may  hope  by  luck  or  by  cunning  to  escape  the  gal¬ 
lows  ;  he  could  not  in  any  way  whatever  escape  the  effect 
of  the  curse.  Such  imagination  beliefs  have  hitherto 
largely  supplied  the  element  of  cohesion  in  their  society; 
delusions  have  preserved  order.  We  may  well  ask:  If 
civilization  ruthlessly  rends  the  fabric  upon  which  native 
society  is  built,  how  shall  we  sustain  the  edifice  ? 


CHRISTIAN  APPROACH  TO  THE  BANTU  69 


2.  The  Future  of  the  Bantu  Face 

The  Bantu  are  not  likely  to  die  out.  They  should 
develop  industrially  and  intellectually,  for  they  have  that 
in  them  which  should  carry  them  far.  But  what  if  they 
gain  in  this  way  and  lose  their  soul,  by  being  left  with¬ 
out  religion  and  moral  sanctions  ?  They  will  gain  nothing 
and  the  world  will  gain  a  new  problem, — the  problem  of 
fifty  millions  of  educated,  industrialized  blacks  with  no 
moral  restraints  beyond  the  laws  imposed  upon  them  by 
alien  nations.  The  black  man  with  a  thin  veneer  of  civ¬ 
ilization  and  without  religious  faith  is  a  dangerous  person. 
The  greatest  disaster  that  could  befall  the  Bantu  would 
be  a  secular  scientific  education.  They  may  become  Mo¬ 
hammedans,  as  many  of  them  already  have,  but  can 
Christian  America  and  Europe  regard  with  equanimity 
the  prospect  of  such  a  tremendous  accession  to  Moslem 
power?  In  some  respects,  undoubtedly,  the  Bantu  would 
gain  by  such  conversion,  but  would  it  be  the  best  thing 
for  them  ?  Or,  lastly,  they  may  become  Christians.  That 
is  the  best  thing,  the  writer  is  convinced,  that  can  happen 
to  them. 

3.  What  Christianity  will  do  for  the  Bantu 

(a)  It  will  Make  Them  Sure  of  God . — Not  merely  will 
it  reveal  Him  as  the  God  of  Nature,  but  as  the  source  and 
sanction  of  moral  law,  the  impersonation  of  righteousness 
and  love;  in  a  word,  as  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ. 

(b)  It  will  Moralize  Their  Whole  Life. — It  will  substi¬ 
tute  the  eternal  moral  law  for  the  evanescent,  altogether 
inadequate,  tribal  morality,  and  will  give  an  incentive  to 
higher  living,  purifying  away  the  actual  foul  condition  of 
things.  There  is  no  use  in  mincing  wrords  here.  Some 
people  used  to  have  the  idea,  and  perhaps  still  have  it, 


70 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


that  the  “primitive  savage”  was  an  innocent  creature, 
until  the  wicked  white  man  came  along  and  taught  him 
the  vices  of  civilization.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  depraved 
white  man  has  nothing  to  teach  the  pagan  that  he  does  not 
already  know.  Many  of  the  Bantu  tribes  were  actually 
on  the  way  to  extinction  through  their  beastly  immorality, 
when  the  missionaries  first  came  among  them.  That  great 
authority  on  Africa,  Sir  Harry  Johnston,  has  recently 
written:  “In  some  writings  on  Africa,  missionary  work 
is  still  sneered  at;  but  one  result — especially  in  South 
and  East  Africa — has  been  to  raise  the  birth-rate 
among  the  negroes  by  discouraging  polygamy,  and  above 
all  by  strenuously  urging  the  abolition  of  the  depraving 
initiation  ceremonies  and  of  all  immodest  behavior 
among  young  girls  and  boys.”  There  is  nothing  whatever 
in  Bantu  religion  as  it  exists  today  that  can  better  the 
moral  state  of  the  people.  They  need  the  absolute  im¬ 
peratives  and  the  moral  ideals  that  Christianity  brings. 

(c)  It  ivill  Liberate  Them  from  Their  Fears. — Chris¬ 
tianity  will  convince  them  of  the  friendliness  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  and  set  them  free  to  develop  whatever  of  good  there 
is  in  them.  The  fear,  which  we  have  seen  characterizes 
them  at  present,  paralyzes  all  effort.  A  man  simply  dare 
not  make  himself  conspicuous.  To  raise  his  head  above  his 
fellows  is  but  to  give  the  signal  for  his  own  destruction. 
There  are,  no  doubt,  other  causes  for  the  African’s  un- 
progressiveness,  but  not  the  least  in  importance  of  these 
causes  is  this  fear  that  freezes  all  initiative.  Set  the  Afri¬ 
can  free  from  that  fear,  let  him  once  stand  up  upon  his 
feet  and  look  out  upon  earth  and  heaven  with  confidence, 
and  he  will  mount.  And  what  can  give  that  confidence 
and  hopefulness  like  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  ? 

( d )  It  will  Make  for  a  Healthy  and  Progressive  Indi¬ 
viduality. — It  will  develop  the  sense  of  the  individual,  as 


CHRISTIAN  APPROACH  TO  THE  BANTU  71 


against  corporate,  responsibility.  A  pagan  Bantu  hardly 
realizes  his  own  personality.  A  man  is  a  member  of  a 
clan,  of  a  tribe,  of  a  family,  and  as  such  shares  respon¬ 
sibility  and  privilege  with  others.  Social  bonds  of  this 
kind  are  a  good  thing,  but  they  are  not  altogether  good, 
when  they  prevent  the  growth  of  individual  responsibility. 
A  man  does  not  think  for  himself ;  he  has  no  sense  of  be¬ 
ing  accountable  for  his  actions  except  to  members  of  his 
own  group.  Under  present  conditions  he  leaves  his  home 
for  a  long  period  of  service  at  some  distant  mine  and  on 
his  return  all  his  savings  are  taken  by  lazy  fellows  who 
remained  at  home  and  who  by  clan-rights  have  a  claim 
upon  his  possessions.  Men  will  not  long  endure  such 
communism.  They  will  inevitably  become  individualists. 
The  necessary  evolution  is  not  without  its  perils;  Chris¬ 
tianity  will  step  in  to  give  a  sense  of  responsibility  to  the 
individualist,  and  will  preserve  what  is  best  in  the  clan 
system, — the  brotherliness,  the  corporate  feeling  and  the 
sense  of  obligation  to  the  common  good. 

“The  pagan  African,”  says  one  well-informed  writer, 
“is  what  he  is  because  of  his  religion.”  Give  him  a  new 
religion,  a  real,  vital,  enlightened  religion,  and  he  will 
be  a  new  man.  Christianity  will  save  him,  because  it  will 
enter  into  every  relation  of  his  life  to  give  it  restraint  and 
uplift;  nothing  else  can. 

If  it  seems  to  any  reader  that  the  argument  has  been 
conducted  on  the  utilitarian  principle  that  religion  is 
useful  to  the  magistrate,  the  writer  can  only  say  that  he 
is  far  from  believing  that  the  Bantu  must  be  evangelized 
in  order  to  make  them  more  useful  men  and  to  prevent 
them  from  becoming  a  peril  to  the  world.  The  black 
man,  too,  is  God’s  child,  and  has  the  same  inherent  right 
with  ourselves  to  know  of  the  Heavenly  Father’s  will  and 
love. 


72 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


4.  The  Acquisition  of  Experience  hy  the  Friendly  Stu¬ 
dent  of  the  Bantu 

While  the  general  public  will  be  interested  by  this 
frank  interpretation  of  Bantu  life  and  thought,  the  book 
will  come  also  into  the  hands  of  young  men  and  women 
who  intend  to  go  as  missionaries  to  Africa.  This  fact 
makes  appropriate  certain  bits  of  advice  which  grow  out 
of  active  missionary  experience. 

(a)  Take  Pains  to  Understand  the  Viewpoint  of  the 
People. — One  who  comes  into  close  relations  with  these 
fine,  virile  Africans  will  discover  that,  while  they  are  re¬ 
ligious  at  heart,  they  look  at  many  things  from  an  angle 
wholly  foreigu  to  an  Anglo-Saxon.  If  the  missionary  or 
the  publicist  is  to  get  at  their  inner  motives  and  ideals, 
he  must  give  them  most  careful  study. 

( b )  Cultivate  Friendly  Relations  with  Them. — The 
young  missionary  must  not  fail  to  make  a  close,  direct 
study  of  the  social  and  religious  customs  and  ideas  of  the 
people.  This  he  cannot  do  satisfactorily  from  books,  how¬ 
ever  well  written.  Nor  can  he  get  them  properly  from 
converts  to  Christianity.  He  will  be  well  advised  to  make 
friends  with  the  rankest  old  pagan  he  can  find,  sitting  at 
his  feet  and  absorbing  his  point  of  view.  When  such  a 
man’s  confidence  has  been  gained,  he  will  talk  freely.  His 
mental  vigor  will  surprise  the  novice  and  afford  him  a 
very  precious  grasp  of  the  native  mind.  The  Bantu  are 
not  simpletons;  the  more  a  missionary  penetrates  their 
minds,  the  more  he  respects  them  as  a  race. 

( c )  Master  the  Language  of  the  People. — It  goes  with¬ 
out  saying  that  before  this  advice  can  be  carried  out  the 
missionary  must  have  secured  an  adequate  knowledge  of 
the  language.  He  should  be  very  cautious  in  accepting 
any  information  about  the  people’s  beliefs  that  comes  to 


CHRISTIAN  APPROACH  TO  THE  BANTU  73 


him  through  the  medium  of  English.  It  is  so  fatally 
easy  when  expressing  African  conceptions  in  one’s  own 
tongue  to  confound  the  sense  of  words.  For  instance, 
one  may  be  told  that  the  Bantu  believe  in  a  “soul,”  but 
it  would  not  do  to  leap  to  the  conclusion  that  their  ideas 
of  the  soul  are  identical  with  our  own.  A  real  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  language  will  help  to  avoid  such  pitfalls. 
The  missionary  keen  on  his  work  will  not  be  content  with 
gaining  a  smattering  of  the  language.  He  must  know  it 
so  thoroughly  as  to  be  able  to  follow  every  ramification 
of  African  thought.  He  should  aim  at  attaining  such 
proficiency  that  the  people  will  recognize  him  among 
themselves  as  a  leading  authority  on  it.  He  should  know 
it  better  even  than  any  of  them  do.  Language,  it  has  been 
well  said,  is  a  temple  which  enshrines  the  soul  of  a  peo¬ 
ple.  No  time  and  no  effort  must  be  begrudged  by  the 
young  missionary  in  penetrating  to  that  sacred  enclosure 
by  a  diligent  study  of  the  native  language.  And  expe¬ 
rience  proves  that  unless  he  resolutely  sets  about  the  task 
in  the  early  days  of  his  service,  before  he  is  ensnared  in 
the  routine  of  his  ministry,  he  is  very  unlikely  ever  to 
reach  the  goal. 

( d )  Cultivate  Tact  and  Patience. — It  should  be  noted 
that  great  tact  is  needed  in  securing  reliable  information 
from  the  natives.  As  every  investigator  knows,  direct 
questioning  is  worse  than  useless  unless  and  until  intimate 
relations  have  been  established.  The  people  will  resent  in¬ 
quisitiveness  and  will  probably  answer  falsely.  Infinite 
tact  and  perseverance  are  required  for  successful  progress. 

(e)  Make  Accurate  and  Full  Records. — When  informa¬ 
tion  is  gained  in  this  way,  the  young  missionary  should 
lose  no  time  in  making  note  of  it.  The  value  to  himself 
and  to  others  of  his  studies  at  first  hand  will  be  in  direct 
proportion  to  the  accuracy,  fullness  and  preciseness  of  his 


74 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


record.  The  missionary  should  treat  this  part  of  his 
work — and  wherever  a  missionary  finds  himself  among 
people  who  have  not  been  thoroughly  studied  he  should 
regard  this  study  as  part  of  his  work — with  the  same 
painstaking  care  that  a  chemist  bestows  upon  a  scientific 
investigation. 

(/)  Treat  Local  Customs  and  Ideas  with  Respect. — The 
novice  should  treat  the  religious  ideas  of  his  people  seri¬ 
ously  with  no  air  of  superciliousness.  It  should  be  un¬ 
necessary  to  suggest  that  he  should  make  all  his  inquiries 
in  the  spirit  of  the  physician  who  studies  anatomy  and 
physiology,  in  order  that  he  may  help  and  heal,  not  at  all 
in  the  spirit  of  the  ghoul  who  studies  the  same  things  so 
that  he  may  best  be  in  a  position  to  harm  and  destroy.  It 
is  best  for  the  young  missionary  to  refrain  from  any 
hypercritical  attitude,  until  he  has  established  himself  as 
a  friend  and  as  an  authority  on  native  language  and  cus¬ 
tom.  No  one  should  presume  to  denounce  a  custom,  how¬ 
ever  evil  it  may  seem  to  he,  until  it  has  been  thoroughly 
grasped  in  all  its  bearings.  Even  then,  the  separation  of 
the  false  elements  from  the  true  is  better  than  sweeping 
condemnation,  for  upon  the  true  elements  one  can  build. 

(g)  Seek  for  Points  of  Contact. — The  young  mission¬ 
ary  should  be  ever  on  the  lookout  for  pegs  in  primitive 
social  and  religious  experience  on  which  to  hang  the  new 
and  better  conceptions  which  Christianity  offers.  We 
seek  for  these  points  of  contact,  and  we  do  well ;  but  when 
all  is  said,  the  fact  remains  that  there  is  no  point  of  con¬ 
tact  like  the  warm  human  touch.  When  the  missionary 
meets  the  people  as  men  and  women,  when  he  learns  to 
trust  and  love  them,  they  respond.  If  he  goes  to  them  as 
a  being  from  another  planet,  is  distant  and  aloof  from 
them,  they  will  close  up  like  a  sensitive  plant  under  one’s 
finger.  They  may  pay  him  deference  because  he  is  a 


CHRISTIAN  APPROACH  TO  THE  BANTU  75 


white  man  and  a  missionary;  they  will  not  open  their 
hearts  to  him  as  confidant  and  friend. 

( h )  In  Conclusion. — The  sum  of  the  whole  matter  is 
this :  One  who  longs  to  lead  a  people  to  God  must  win 
their  confidence  and  deserve  their  affection  and  respect. 
When  they  are  shown  by  such  teachers  the  Christ  in  all 
the  fullness  and  glory  of  His  personality,  they  too  will 
readily  yield  Him  the  frankincense  of  a  loyal  devotion. 
Missionary  experience  repeatedly  has  proven  that  the 
Christian  message  touches  the  heart  of  every  human  be¬ 
ing.  The  backward  peoples,  once  they  understand  it,  will 
be  quick  to  accept  the  simple  faith  in  Christ  Jesus. 


APPENDIX  I 


HINTS  FOR  PRELIMINARY  READING  OR  STUDY 
ABOUT  PRIMITIVE  RELIGIONS 

No  amount  of  reading  about  a  primitive  religion  can  ever 
take  the  place  of  a  direct,  friendly  contact  with  the  people 
to  whom  it  is  a  real  religious  experience,  or  of  a  study  of 
their  religious  ideas  and  practices  on  the  ground.  Never¬ 
theless,  the  one  who  plans  to  go  as  a  student  or  as  a  mis¬ 
sionary  to  Africa  or  to  the  island  world  or  to  any  region 
where  animistic  influences  predominate  should  use  every 
feasible  means  for  gaining  a  preliminary  knowledge  of  such 
areas,  of  their  peoples  and  of  the  prevailing  type  of  religious 
life. 

First  of  all  may  well  be  the  reading  of  some  simple  intro¬ 
duction  to  primitive  religions,  such  as  the  proper  chapter 
in  Barton’s  Religions  of  the  World  (No.  I)1  or  Soper’s  even 
more  recent  volume  (No.  24).  The  American  or  Canadian 
student  who  wishes  to  go  more  deeply  into  detail  may  con¬ 
sult  Toy’s  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Religion  (No.  25). 
One  or  two  volumes  may  be  mentioned  which  give  attention 
to  the  general  problems  of  primitive  religion,  such  as 
Marett’s  The  Threshold  of  Religion  (No.  16). 

A  student  going  to  Malaysia  or  southeastern  Asia  or  to 
Melanesia  may  profitably  read  Warneck’s  famous  book  en¬ 
titled  in  the  American  edition  The  Living  Christ  and  Dy¬ 
ing  Heathenism ,  but  known  in  England  under  the  title  The 
Living  Forces  of  the  Gospel.  It  is  a  psychological  study  of 
animism  in  the  Indian  archipelago  based  upon  the  writer’s 
experience  as  a  missionary. 

The  student  going  to  any  part  of  Africa  may  be  advised 
to  read  on  general  principles  such  books  as  Fraser’s  Winning 
of  Primitive  People  (No.  5)  and  Dennett’s  At  the  Back  of 

1  See  the  bibliography  following. 

77 


78 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


the  Black  Maris  Mind  (No.  4).  He  should  also  read  one  of 
the  monographs  referred  to  in  the  following  bibliography, 
the  one  most  closely  relating  to  the  region  which  he  is  to 
enter.  Such  a  thoughtful  reading  with  a  following  up  of 
perplexing  statements  by  a  reading  of  the  articles  in  Hast¬ 
ings’  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics  (No.  6)  will  go 
far  toward  introducing  the  young  missionary  to  the  religious 
ideas  of  his  people. 


APPENDIX  II 
A  BRIEF  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1.  Barton,  George  A.  Religions  of  the  World ,  Chicago, 

University  of  Chicago  Press,  1920.  A  singularly  clear 
introduction  to  the  various  religions,  including  living 
faiths. 

2.  Bentley,  W.  H.  Pioneering  on  the  Congo.  2  vols.  New 

York,  Revell,  1900.  By  an  early  but  trustworthy  writer. 
Volume  I  contains  an  important  discussion  about  “the 
knowledge  of  God  and  fetichism.”  See  also  Vol.  II, 
Appendix  2. 

3.  Callaway,  H.  The  Religions  System  of  the  Amazulu. 

London,  Triibner,  1870.  Incomplete  and  rare,  but  of 
great  value,  containing  Zulu  texts  with  English  transla¬ 
tions.  The  most  valuable  sections  discuss  “LRikulun- 
kulu,”  pp.  1-104;  “Ancestor  Worship,”  pp.  130-227; 
“Diviners,”  pp.  259-274;  “Medical  Magic  and  Witch¬ 
craft,”  pp.  417-448. 

4.  Dennett,  R.  E.  At  the  Back  of  the  Black  Mans  Mind. 

New  York,  Macmillan,  1909.  To  be  read  with  great 
discrimination.  Important,  however,  for  the  exposition 
of  Nyambe  (Nzambi  is  Dennett’s  spelling),  Nbongoism 
and  Nkiciism.  Unfortunately,  a  book  which  confuses 
a  beginner. 

5.  Fraser,  Donald.  Winning  a  Primitive  People.  New 

York,  Dutton,  1914.  An  interesting  book  which  con¬ 
tains  a  good  chapter  on  the  religion  of  the  Tambuka 
of  British  Central  Africa. 


APPENDIX 


79 


6.  Hastings,  J.  (editor).  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and 

Ethics.  New  York,  Scribner.  This  important  publica¬ 
tion  contains  many  general  articles  and  some  special 
articles  of  great  value  to  the  student  of  primitive  re¬ 
ligion.  The  most  important  of  these  are: 

Yol.  I — Africa ,  by  A.  H.  Keane. 

Ancestor  Worship  and  Cult  of  the  Dead. 
{Introduction) ,  by  W.  Crooke. 

Yol.  II — Bantu  and  South  Africa,  by  E.  S.  Hart- 
land. 

Vol.  IY — Death  and  Disposal  of  the  Dead  { Intro¬ 
ductory  and  Primitive),  by  E.  S. 
Hartland. 

Demons  and  Spirits  {Introductory) ,  by 
L.  H.  Gray. 

Yol.  Y — Ethics  {Rudimentary) ,  by  R.  R.  Marett. 

Fetishism  {Introductory),  by  W.  G. 
Aston. 

Yol.  VI — God  {Primitive  and  Savage),  by  A.  Lang. 
Yol.  VIII — liana,  by  R.  R.  Marett. 

Yol.  IX — Nature,  Primitive  and  Savage,  by  J.  A. 
MacCulloch. 

Negroes  and  West  Africa,  by  A.  F.  Mock- 
ler-Ferryman. 

Nyanjas,  by  A.  Hetherwick. 

Nylka,  by  A.  Werner. 

Orenda,  by  H.  B.  Alexander. 

Vol.  X — Religion,  by  Stanley  A.  Cook. 

Secret  Societies  {African),  by  N.  W. 
Thomas. 

Vol.  XI — Soul  {Primitive) ,  by  H.  B.  Alexander. 
Vol.  XII — Tabu,  by  R.  R.  Marett. 

Totemism,  by  E.  Sidney  Hartland. 
Tutelary  Gods,  by  E.  0.  James. 

Worship  {Primitive),  by  H.  B.  Alex¬ 
ander. 

7.  Gouldsbury,  C.,  and  Sheane,  H.  The  Great  Plateau  of 

Northern  Rhodesia.  London,  Macmillan,  1911.  Used 
as  a  text-book  for  British  officials  administering  the 
country.  Chapter  VI  upon  “ Animism  and  Witchcraft” 
is  especially  valuable. 


80 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


8.  Hobley,  G.  W.  Bantu  Beliefs  and  Magic.  London,  H.  F. 

and  G.  Witherby,  1922.  As  provincial  governor  Mr. 
Hobley  studied  for  many  years  customs  and  beliefs  of 
the  Kikiyu  and  Kamba  tribes  over  whom  he  ruled  in 
Kenya  Colony.  It  is  strongly  commended  by  Sir  J.  G. 
Frazer,  a  foremost  authority  on  primitive  religion. 

9.  Johnston,  Sir  H.  H.  George  Grenfell  and  the  Congo. 
2  vols.  London,  Hutchinson,  1908.  Sir  Harry  John¬ 
ston  is  a  prolific  writer  on  Africa.  As  a  British  admin¬ 
istrator  he  has  had  a  peculiarly  valuable  experience  in 
various  sections  of  Africa  and  ranks  high  as  an  anthro¬ 
pologist  and  ethnologist.  One  who  wishes  to  know  Af¬ 
rica  in  general  will  be  well  advised  to  read  The  Uganda 
Protectorate ,  1902,  and  British  Central  Africa ,  1897,  or 
any  other  available  volumes  by  him. 

10.  Junod,  H.  A.  The  Life  of  a  South  African  Tribe.  New 
York,  Macmillan,  1912-13.  A  valuable  study  of  the 
Thonga  people  of  Portuguese  East  Africa  by  a  pains¬ 
taking  and  scholarly  missionary  investigator.  In  Yol. 
II,  Part  VI,  is  a  very  full  description  of  their  religious 
beliefs. 

11.  Kidd,  Dudley.  The  Essential  Kafir.  London,  A.  and 
C.  Black,  1904.  Gives  a  vivid  description  of  a  witch 
doctor,  his  methods  and  influence. 

12.  Kingsley,  M.  H.  Travels  in  West  Africa.  New  York, 
Macmillan,  1897.  This  brilliant  woman  gives  in  Chap¬ 
ters  XII-XVI  a  very  full  account  of  fetichism  as  she 
saw  it  in  the  region  just  north  of  the  equator. 

13.  - West  African  Studies.  2d  ed.,  1901.  New  York, 

Macmillan.  The  chapters  on  fetichism  of  this  later  book 
are  also  quite  valuable. 

14.  Leroy,  Alexander.  The  Religion  of  the  Primitives. 
New  Arork,  Macmillan,  1922.  A  discriminating,  con¬ 
crete  and  yet  philosophical  discussion  mainly  of  African 
religion  by  a  Roman  Catholic  authority  of  forty-five 
years’  experience. 

15.  Macdonald,  Duff.  Africans ;  or  the  Heart  of  Heathen 
Africa.  2  vols.  London,  Simpkin,  Marshall  &  Co., 
1882.  Chapters  III,  IY  and  XV  of  Volume  I  contain 
an  account  of  the  religion  of  the  lraos  in  the  Lake 
Nyasa  region. 


APPENDIX 


81 


16.  Marett,  Robert  E.  The  Threshold  of  Religion  (2d 
ed.).  New  York,  Macmillan,  1914.  A  short  series  of 
essays  on  rudimentary  religious  experience.  Most  valu¬ 
able. 

17.  Nassau,  R.  H.  Fetichism  in  West  Africa.  New  York, 
Scribner,  1904.  One  of  the  fullest  and  most  authorita¬ 
tive  accounts  in  English  of  fetichism  in  Africa.  It  gives 
the  results  of  forty  years  of  observation  and  study. 

18.  Roscoe,  J.  The  Baganda.  New  York,  Macmillan,  1911. 

19.  - The  Northern  Bantu.  Cambridge,  University 

Press,  1915. 

20.  -  The  Soul  of  Central  Africa.  London,  Cassell, 

1922.  The  author  was  for  some  time  a  resident  of 
Uganda,  and  is  now  a  specialist  upon  anthropology  at 
Cambridge  University.  His  writings  are  authoritative. 

21.  Routledge,  W.  S.,  and  Routledge,  R.  With  a  Prehis¬ 
toric  People.  London,  E.  Arnold,  1910.  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Routledge  spent  many  years  in  British  East  Africa  and 
were  scientifically  prepared  for  their  work.  Part  III 
discusses  the  religion  of  the  Akikuyu. 

22.  Smith,  E.  W.,  and  Dale,  A.  M.  The  Ila-Speaking  Peo¬ 
ples  of  Northern  Rhodesia.  2  vols.  New  York,  Mac¬ 
millan,  1920.  A  very  complete  and  highly  interesting 
study  of  the  Ba-ila,  worked  out  in  very  full  detail,  and 
recognized  as  one  of  the  authoritative  books  on  African 
tribal  life  and  belief. 

23.  Smith,  E.  W.  Handbook  of  the  Ila<  Language.  London, 
Frowde,  1907.  A  work  of  much  value  which  contains 
abundant  material  relating  to  religion. 

24.  Soper,  E.  D.  The  Religions  of  Mankind.  New  York, 
Abingdon  Press,  1921.  A  very  valuable  and  clear  in¬ 
troduction  to  the  study  of  religions  including  those  of 
today. 

25.  Toy,  C.  H.  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Religion. 
New  York,  Scribner,  1910.  An  authoritative  but  not 
very  readable  introduction  to  the  phenomena  of  religion. 

26.  Warneck,  J.  The  Living  Christ  and  Dying  Heathen¬ 
ism.  New  York,  Revell,  1909.  A  study  of  animism  and 
the  Christian  approach  to  the  primitive  mind. 

27.  Weeks,  J.  H.  Among  Congo  Cannibals.  London, 
Seeley,  1913. 


82 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOWER  RACES 


28.  Weeks,  J.  H.  Among  the  Primitive  Bakongo.  London, 
Seeley,  1914.  The  author’s  thirty  years  of  close  intimacy 
with  the  people  of  the  Congo  region  makes  his  discussions 
authoritative. 

29.  Werner,  A.  The  Natives  of  British  Central  Africa. 
London,  Constable,  1906.  The  author  is  perhaps  the 
most  learned  woman  among  those  who  have  in  Africa 
studied  the  peoples,  languages  and  religions.  See  espe¬ 
cially  Chapters  III  and  IV. 

30.  Willoughby,  W.  C.  Pace  Problems  in  the  New  Africa. 
Oxford,  The  Clarendon  Press,  1923.  An  attempt  to 
show  the  true  inwardness  of  African  life.  Very  valuable. 

31.  Crawford,  Dan.  Back  to  the  Long  Grass:  My  Link 
with  Livingstone.  London,  Hodder;  New  York,  Doran, 
1922.  A  rather  erratic  volume,  but  containing  inter¬ 
esting  allusions  to  many  of  the  Bantu  customs  and  ideas 
referred  to  in  this  volume. 

32.  Molema,  S.  M.  The  Bantu  Past  and  Present.  Edin¬ 
burgh,  W.  Green,  1920.  A  historical  and  ethnographical 
study  of  the  native  races  of  South  Africa  by  one  who 
was  born  a  Bantu. 


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